EU-Serbia talks to resume "very soon" -Rehn

BRUSSELS, May 30 (Reuters) The European Union's enlargement chief told colleagues today that talks on closer ties with Serbia could resume very soon because Belgrade was moving to cooperate with the U N war crimes tribunal.

''The new government in Serbia has done and is doing right things to enable us to resume Stabilisation and Association Agreement negotiations very soon,'' a spokeswoman quoted Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn as saying.

However she said she could not say ''when very soon is''. Rehn does not need the permission of member states or a formal decision of the executive European Commission to relaunch talks.

He briefed the Commission on progress by the pro-reform coalition formed in Serbia earlier this month and was due to brief EU ambassadors later in the day.

An EU source said no announcement was expected today on a resumption of the talks, suspended a year ago after Belgrade failed to keep a promise to arrest former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, indicted on genocide charges.

But Rehn might travel to the region within days. Chief U N war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte is due in Belgrade next Monday on her latest bid to corner Mladic, wanted over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims.

The EU move comes at a sensitive time as major powers are wrangling over the final status of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, in limbo under U N rule since NATO waged an air war in 1999 to drive out Serbian forces.

Belgrade's feuding parties are united in opposition to independence for the overwhelmingly Albanian-populated region.

Diplomats said Brussels is keen to smooth the way for a supervised Kosovo independence settlement, which will be largely policed and administered by the EU, by making parallel progress on closer ties with Serbia.

Progress has been stymied so far by the absence of serious efforts to catch Mladic and several months of bitter coalition negotiations in Belgrade.

Rehn's spokeswoman, Krisztina Nagy, said both President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica had committed themselves to implementing rigorously the new government's programme, including cooperation with the war crimes tribunal.

Brussels was now looking to see whether there was effective coordination of the security and judicial services, the will and ability to carry out serious search operations and a smooth and efficient working relationship with the Hague tribunal.

The EU-Serbia agreement could only be concluded once Belgrade had achieved full cooperation with the tribunal.

REUTERS GL HT1558