EU's Rehn -no option but to halt Serbia talks

BRUSSELS, May 2 (Reuters) The European Union has no option but to halt talks on closer ties with Serbia because it has not cooperated with the U.N. war crimes tribunal to arrest a top genocide suspect, the EU's enlargement chief said today.

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said he would consult chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte on Wednesday before taking a formal decision, ''but the ... facts are clear enough. We don't see Ratko Mladic in the Hague and to our understanding there is no full cooperation with the Hague tribunal.

''That means that we don't seem to have any other option than calling off the negotiations with Serbia,'' he told reporters after an end-April EU deadline to capture Mladic expired with no sign of the former Bosnian Serb military commander.

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