Serbia this morning woke up to find around $40 million in financial aid from Washington frozen after it failed to hand over suspects to the UN war crimes tribunal before a deadline set by the United States.
Newspapers and politicians drew comparisons with the international isolation during the rule of Mr Slobodan Milosevic. The two main camps in the reformist alliance which ousted the authoritarian Yugoslav leader blamed each other.
‘Threat of sanctions again’, lamented the front-page headline in the
Glas Javnosti
daily.
Under US legislation, Serbia could only receive most of this year's financial aid allocation after March 31st [yesterday] if the Bush administration certified it had passed several tests - including co-operation with the tribunal in The Hague.
US officials had made clear in the run-up to the deadline that they wanted to see more suspects handed over. This is a politically sensitive task in Serbia where many people see the tribunal as a political institution biased against Serbs.
Mr Milosevic was the last Yugoslav citizen to be transferred to the tribunal from Belgrade, in June 2001. He is charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
The State Department made no comment immediately after the deadline expired at midnight Washington time. Its silence spoke for itself, as without certification, the aid was frozen.
The freeze also affects US support for badly needed loans for Yugoslavia from international financial institutions.
Some media speculated that US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell could try to delay an official pronouncement to give the more pro-Western camp in the reformist alliance which toppled Milosevic in 2000 more time to try to engineer a hand over.