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Yugoslavia's First Ambassador Takes Up Post in Bosnia
SARAJEVO, Nov 27 (IslamOnline and News Agencies) - Yugoslav diplomat Stanimir Vukicevic on Tuesday officially took up his post as Belgrade's first ambassador to Bosnia nearly a decade after Bosnia declared independence former Yugoslavia, triggering the 1992-95 war.
Vukicevic - representing the Yugoslav federation's two remaining republics, Serbia and Montenegro -- presented his credentials to Jozo Krizanovic, chairman of Bosnia-Hercegovina's tripartite presidency, in Sarajevo.
"It is a pleasure and great honor to be the first Yugoslav ambassador to Bosnia, the country which had, until recently, been within (our) joint state," Vukicevic told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"There is a wide range of issues we have to tackle, and I have no doubt that solving those issues is of mutual interest," he said.
Vukicevic said he would focus on "full political normalization" and "reestablishment of economic cooperation" between the two countries.
Rebuilding of mutual trust, the return of refugees and cultural cooperation will also be high on the agenda, he added.
Sarajevo and Belgrade established diplomatic relations last December, ending nearly a decade of frosty ties since the war, which opposed Bosnian Serbs backed by the regime of former president Slobodan Milosevic against Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
The war claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and left over one million refugees.
Milosevic, indicted for genocide in Bosnia and war crimes committed in Kosovo and Croatia, is due to go on trial on February 12 before The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Milosevic was initially indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity before also being indicted with genocide.
Commenting the genocide charge against Milosevic, Vukicevic said that the ICTY tried individuals and "not peoples", suggesting that Serbs as a whole should not be blamed for the atrocities.
Another sensitive issue in relations between the two countries is Bosnia's suit against Yugoslavia for genocide and aggression filed before the Hague-based International Court of Justice in 1993.
"Things have changed since then, and the suit should be seen in the context of current situation," Vukicevic said. "We appeal to Bosnia to withdraw its suit, because it would be a good move" towards developing the cooperation.
"However, I think, that as far as we are concerned, [the suit] it is not an obstacle in establishing cooperation", Vukicevic added.
Meanwhile, United Nations war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte accused the Yugoslav army on Tuesday of sheltering indicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic.
"As an officer of the Yugoslav Army, General Mladic is said to enjoy military immunity and he is being shielded from both national and international justice," Del Ponte told a public meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
She urged the council to "insist upon the arrest" of Mladic and also of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, saying their continuing liberty was an "affront to the authority of this council".
Del Ponte was presenting her six-monthly update on the work of the ICTY.
The ICTY has indicted Mladic and Karadzic for their role in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, notably for the massacre of between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men in the town of Srebrenica in 1995.
Del Ponte described the transfer of Milosevic to the tribunal in June as "a groundbreaking event and a courageous step by the Serbian government."
But "cooperation at the federal level appears to be blocked for reasons of domestic politics," she said.
Serbia is the dominant partner of Montenegro in what remains of the Yugoslav federation; four other former Yugoslav republics broke away in the mid-1990s in the bloodiest conflicts seen in Europe for half a century.
"Despite their declarations, the federal institutions obstruct the work of my office," Del Ponte went on, adding: "we need access to documents, archives and witnesses."
"At the federal level, access to these important sources of evidence is being denied to us on the pretext that no domestic legislation authorizes it," Del Ponte said. She added that there was no sign that the Yugoslav authorities planned to adopt their laws to enable them to cooperate with the tribunal.
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