Serbia, Bosnia vow to improve ties on way to EU

Leaders of Serbia and Bosnia on Tuesday vowed to improve relations for the sake of integration into the European Union, at their first meeting in Belgrade in years.

- Today we are sending the message to the whole of Europe and the world that the Western Balkans is an area of reconciliation, an area of a lasting peace (that) wants to be integrated into the EU - said Serbian Presiden Boris Tadic after meeting Bosnia's parliamentary speaker Sulejman Tihic.

Tihic, a moderate Muslim leader, is the first senior official from Sarajevo to visit Belgrade in more than six years.

- There is a lot of things that bind us and we should use that for the benefit of our nations. A strategic interest of Bosnia and Hercegovina is to have good and friendly relations with Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, with all our neighbors - Tihic told reporters.

Relations between Belgrade and Sarajevo have been strained ever since the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia, in which Serbia backed Serbs against Muslims in the erstwhile Yugoslav republic.

Most recently Sarajevo was outraged by a Serbian arrest warrant for a Bosnian wartime Muslim leader and by a 12-year sentence against a Bosnian wartime official for war crimes.

But relations have thawed in the last few months after the Serbian parliament adopted a declaration apologizing to Bosnia for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces.

Serbia has been under pressure for years to arrest Bosnian Serb wartime military chief Ratko Mladic and send him to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague to stand trial for genocide in Srebrenica, among other charges.

Tadic reiterated that Serbia "will do its best" to capture Mladic.

- All those indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity must be brought before a court and held accountable for such a big crimes. That is a basic precondition of reconciliation among our peoples - Tadic said.

Tihic echoed his words, saying victims deserve the justice.

- We cannot not forget the past, but we must not live in the past - the Bosnian official said.