The United States has asked Yugoslavia to grant US citizens legal immunity from extradition in cases heard by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, a Yugoslav offical said on Thursday.
”The United States embassy in Belgrade submitted a proposal last month for an agreement related to handing over of persons to the ICC,” Vladimir Djeric, an advisor to Yugoslav Foreign Minister, told radio B92.
According to the proposal, the US ”will not extradite Yugoslav citizens to the ICC without an explicit demand and our country will not hand over US citizens to this court”, Djeric said.
The United States is vehemently opposed to the court, which it fears will be turned into a political instrument to make malicious war crimes accusations against its soldiers abroad, particularly in
UN peacekeeping operations.
More than 4 000 US troops serve in the UN-administrated Yugoslav province of Kosovo as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission KFOR.
Djeric said foreign ministry experts had begun analysing the proposal and that the Yugoslav federal government would make a final decision.
”There is no deadline in this document… And the agreement is not that urgent, as the ICC has yet to begin its work,” Djeric said.
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic told the radio a decision on the US proposal should be discussed with Yugoslavia’s European partners, ”to avoid each country resolving it bilaterally”.
”The fact is that all European countries have accepted this international court and the question is whether we see our place among those who believe that for certain criminal acts against humanity such courts should be in charge,” Djindjic told B92.
Washington has signed similar pacts with Israel and Romania, in which both sides agree not extradite the other’s citizens to the ICC without mutual consent.
– Sapa-AFP