BOSNIAN PRESIDENCY MEMBER HARIS SILAJDZIC CRITICIZES EUROPEAN UNION FOR SIGNING AGREEMENT WITH SERBIA

WASHINGTON, USA (November 10,2007) - A member of the Bosnian Presidency,Haris Silajdzic, denounced the European Union on Friday for signing a preliminary membership agreement with Serbia based on its cooperation in the search for Serbian war criminals. Silajdzic said the signing ignored that Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and the Serbian government had reneged on countless promises to surrender for trial the two most-wanted Serbian war criminals from the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.

Former leaders of the Serbians living in Bosnia,Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic "were not arrested but Serbia got the green light" to sign the document,Bosnian Presdency member Haris Silajdzic stated.

At the same time, they said that Bosnia has not done enough. Bosnia has not done enough because of the Serbians living in Bosnia and Serbia,Silajdzic said.

The 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia, which killed an estimated 200,000 Bosnians in Europe's bloodiest years since World War II, erupted after Serbians living in Bosnia started fighting against the Bosnian Government.

"Serbian leaders have indicated they might try again if Kosovo is given its independence by the United States and other international interlocutors," Silajdzic said.

Bosnian Presidency member Haris Silajdzic also said Serbia's Prime minister Vojislav Kostunica is behind the separation ideas of the Serbians living in Bosnia.

"Someone is fomenting that trouble," he said, and trouble in Bosnia is in Kostunica's interest, a Bosnian crisis with the potential to become a regional crisis," Silajdzic said.

"I don't think that will happen, but obviously that's (what) the pronouncements from Belgrade suggest," Silajdzic said.

Still, the European Union, based on a two-day fact-finding mission by the U.N. war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte, has decided to set Serbia on the road to EU membership. A condition of the signing was that full membership would not be assigned before Serbian war criminals Karadzic, Mladic and two other Serbian war criminals are turned over to the court in The Hague, Netherlands, for trial,Silajdzic said

"Appeasement of the radicals in Belgrade never brought change," Bosnian Presidency member Silajdzic concluded.