22 Sep 2005 12:12 GMT Bosnia Risking International Isolation - Diplomat Copyright C 2005, Dow Jones Newswires
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP)--Bosnia's international administrator warned Bosnian Serbs Thursday that they risked jeopardizing future ties with the European Union and faced international isolation if they reject a police reform. Bosnian Serbs recently rejected plans for a single Bosnian police force, a condition for starting talks this year on an agreement designed to prepare it for E.U. membership. "Think again before it is too late," U.K. diplomat Paddy Ashdown told Bosnian Serb politicians at a news conference. "By rejecting the police reform you dashed this country's hopes for a better future." Negotiations on the Stabilization and Association Agreement, a first step toward eventually joining the E.U., were scheduled to start by the end of the year, if Sarajevo presented plans to unify the police forces of the Bosnian Serb republic and the Bosniak-Croat federation - the last major ethnically divided institutions in the country. But the Bosnian Serb republic parliament overwhelmingly rejected a single police force. Parliament objects to the idea of police crossing over from one ministate into another, fearing this may erase the division of the country which they fought for during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. "All the benefits (of being an E.U. member state) will not come to Bosnia but to its neighbors," Ashdown said. U.S. ambassador to Bosnia, Douglas McElhaney, who appeared alongside Ashdown with other Western diplomats, said that for Bosnian citizens the "greatest sanctions are already here - suspension of the move toward a better future." The talks on police reform have been going on for months, without tangible results. (END) Dow Jones Newswires 09-22-05 0812ET Copyright (c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=20050922 12120007&Take=1 Serbian News Network - SNN [email protected] http://www.antic.org/
