Croatia, Serbia talk of dropping lawsuits

OPATIJA, Croatia, March 25 (UPI) -- The leaders of Croatia and Serbia started informal talks about dropping genocide lawsuits against each other's countries, officials said.

At a Croatian seaside resort in Opatija, Serbian President Boris Tadic and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic talked Wednesday of dropping the charges that date back to the bloody dissolution of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Radio B92 in Begrade reported Thursday.

The lawsuits are filed with the International Court of Justice in The Hague and allege regional "ethnic cleansing" by each country.

At a joint news conference, Tadic said an agreement to drop the lawssuits wouldn't give a reprieve to war crimes suspects from either country.

"We are prepared for a compromise solution, but without invalidating the principles of justice and fairness," Tadic said in a report by the Croatian news agency HINA. "All those who have committed crimes must answer for them."

The two presidents will meet again Saturday in Brussels at a European forum, the Beta news agency said.