Prescott visits Croatia

British deputy prime minister John Prescott is to meet top officials in Croatia today, just weeks after the European Union opened membership talks with the ex-Yugoslav country.

Britain, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, had been particularly insistent the EU should not start talks with Croatia until the country fully co-operated with the UN court in the Hague, Netherlands, and captures a fugitive suspect the court indicted in mid-2001.

The talks – a prelude to actual membership – were to start in March, but the EU then put them on ice because the suspect, General Ante Gotovina, remained at large.

However, the UN chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte declared Croatia fully co-operative in early October and the EU agreed to open talks on October 4.

Croatia claims that Gotovina fled the country long ago and so it cannot arrest him, but has nevertheless stepped up search for him, aiming to prove to the EU that it is not sheltering him.

Gotovina, charged with the wartime atrocities against the Serbs, is revered as a war hero by many in Croatia.