Kostunica to reject war crimes meeting

Del Ponte remains confident of a meeting with Kostunica

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- President Vojislav Kostunica is not expected to meet the U.N. war crimes tribunal's chief prosecutor when she visits Belgrade, a senior aide said.

While Carla del Ponte hopes to meet Kostunica during her January 23 visit, the deputy president of Democratic Party of Serbia, Aleksandar Popovic, said she did not have the stature to warrant a meeting.

"Mr Kostunica can receive presidents of state and prime ministers and Madame del Ponte is neither one nor the other. She is not even a foreign minister of a country or an ambassador who brings accreditations," Popovic told B92 radio.

Del Ponte remained confident Kostunica would meet her, but Popovic said: "Mr Kostunica's day has 24 hours and Madame del Ponte is not high enough in some hierarchy for Mr Kostunica to receive her."

Kostunica has so far refused to hand over his predecessor, Slobodan Milosevic, to the tribunal for alleged war crimes against ethnic Albanians in the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict.

Del Ponte says Yugoslavia is obligated to extradite Milosevic although Belgrade would prefer trying Milosevic at home and has mentioned potential charges of corruption and vote-rigging, rather than war crimes.

Del Ponte, who is in Zagreb for talks with Croatian leaders, said: "I hope that President Kostunica will find some time to meet me.

"He is meeting a lot of people, I don't think that he won't find time to meet the prosecutor of the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia)."

Some analysts say Belgrade's progress toward re-integration into Europe and international institutions since the fall last October of Milosevic could be damaged if Kostunica spurns del Ponte, who was barred from Yugoslavia by Milosevic.

Popovic made his comments two days after a surprise meeting between Kostunica and Milosevic.

Meanwhile, del Ponte's office said it was withdrawing an invitation to Croatia's army chief of staff to be questioned on his role in Croatia's 1991-95 war of independence from Yugoslavia.

The letter of invitation had not been made public but was widely seen as implying that General Petar Stipetic was to be interviewed as a potential suspect and not a witness, causing political controversy in Croatia.

Stipetic is widely regarded as a professional soldier whose name has not been linked by the media or human rights groups with any of the atrocities committed during the war.

"We will withdraw our invitation and will let Gen. Stipetic himself decide if he will be interviewed or not," Del Ponte told reporters after a day-long discussion that Prime Minister Ivica Racan described as difficult but fruitful.

Del Ponte said Stipetic had approached her office with a proposal to talk about his role in the war.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Croatian Presidency
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Major War Criminals/Suspects

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