BELGRADE (Reuters) – Serbia has told the UN war crimes prosecutor it was about to arrest 16 people for atrocities during the Balkan war and was determined to apprehend Ratko Mladic, key to its bid to join the European Union.

Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, said yesterday his office was preparing to indict and arrest the 16 people as Serbia, keen to boost its European Union membership prospects, increases its drive to deal with its recent past.

The suspects are from three separate cases of war crimes committed in Bosnia and Croatia during ethnic wars in the 1990s that followed ex-Yugoslavia’s disintegration. “In one case we have 23 killed, in another 16 killed, while in the third case we have six killed but many wounded and tortured,” Vukcevic said.

“The [arrest] operation will be conducted soon,” he told Reuters as United Nations chief war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz was in Belgrade to assess cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Vukcevic said he had informed Brammertz about the new cases.

Serbia hopes its renewed efforts will be recognized by the Hague tribunal, which has often criticized it for dragging its feet on war crimes, particularly its failure to arrest Mladic.

“Full cooperation with the tribunal will be achieved only once Mladic is in The Hague,” Vukcevic said. “There is obvious political will for that in Serbia.” Mladic, indicted for the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, was seen in public in Serbia until 2000.

The most recent internal opinion poll provided to Reuters by the prosecutor’s office showed that the number of those who oppose the arrest of the two remaining suspects was inching up, but Vukcevic said the government would not be deterred.

“It is difficult to give any precise timing, but I believe Mladic will be arrested by the end of the year,” he said.