Belgrade urged to assist U.N. tribunal

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Europe's human rights body has urged Belgrade to co-operate with the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

The Council of Europe's Secretary-General, Walter Schwimmer, said on Thursday that Yugoslavia would be denied membership in the organisation unless it co-operates fully with the criminal tribunal.

His comments came as United Nations chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte met a wall of resistance from Belgrade to her demand that Slobodan Milosevic be extradited to face a war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

A day after her apparently heated discussion with President Vojislav Kostunica on the issue, senior government figures told Del Ponte the former leader should be tried in Yugoslavia.

She is expected to give a news conference later on Thursday, breaking the public silence she has kept during her trip, aimed at persuading the leadership to hand over Milosevic and other war crimes suspects.

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Walter Schwimmer: No European membership without co-operation

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Schwimmer told CNN that the Council of Europe would assist Yugoslavia if it co-operated.

"There will be some transition period. Yugoslavia can change its legislation and we will assist Yugoslavia in this difficult process, including changes to Yugoslavia's legislation to make it possible that Yugoslavia co-operates with the war crimes tribunal," he said.

But Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic made clear the government's preference for a trial in Yugoslavia, saying most Serbs do not trust the Netherlands-based tribunal.

"I explained that the official position of the government was that a trial should take place on our territory," he said after meeting Del Ponte.

Even Serbian Prime Minister-designate Zoran Djindjic, Milosevic's fiercest rival in the last years of his leadership, suggested he would prefer to try him at home, although he urged "co-operation" with the tribunal.

"In a couple of months we should invite foreign institutions to assure themselves if our courts are independent and credible enough," Djindjic said, following talks with Del Ponte.

He admitted the prosecutor had been "not delighted" at the suggestion but called her expectations "unrealistic".

Kostunica himself said in an interview published on Wednesday that handing over Milosevic, who remains a free man and is still living in Belgrade, could destabilise Yugoslavia.

"If one wants to destabilise the situation in this country, one might behave the way Carla Del Ponte behaves," he was quoted as saying by the International Herald Tribune.

The tribunal believes that a total of 15 of the 27 suspects publicly indicted, but still free, remain at large in Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia's two-member federation.

While most people of Serbia have rallied behind the pro-democracy leadership which ousted Milosevic in October, feeling against the U.N. tribunal remains high with many Serbs considering it biased against them.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.