LONDON, April 5 (UPI) -- Croatia must hand over Gen. Ante Gotovina to the International Criminal Tribunal if it wants to join the European Union, the British government has said.
In a formal response Tuesday to the Foreign Affairs Committee's report on the Western Balkans, the government said full cooperation with the tribunal is "an international, legal and moral obligation ... and vital to enable the region to move away from its past towards a European, democratic future."
Accession talks were due to begin March 17 but were postponed until Croatia showed full cooperation with the tribunal.
Gotovina is wanted on charges of killing 150 ethnic Serbs and expelling 150,000 others during a 1995 offensive against Serb forces. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has insisted he is no longer in the country but the Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte does not accept the claim.
In two recent reports to the EU, she said the general was still "within the reach of the Croatian authorities."
Del Ponte also said in the past Croatia had spied on her investigators and passed on the information to the fugitive general.
