European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton welcomed on Wednesday Serbia's arrest of Croatian Serb wartime leader Goran Hadzic and said it was an important step by Belgrade towards fulfilling its EU ambitions.
"The European Union strongly welcomes the arrest of Goran Hadzic by Serbia's authorities," the bloc's top officials said in a statement.
"This is a further important step for Serbia in realising its European perspective and equally crucial for international justice," the statement said.
After the arrest of Ratko Mladic, this arrest sends a positive signal to the European Union and Serbia's neighbours, but primarily to the rule of law in Serbia. The Serbian nation is in the process of facing its past and turning over a a new leaf towards a better European future, the EU officials said, expressing their expectations that Hadzic would be extradited to the ICTY as soon as possible and underlining that full cooperation with the Hague tribunal remained crucial for Serbia's EU path.
Separately, NATO's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also hailed the capture of Hadzic. "This arrest will allow for the most painful chapter in recent European history to be closed," he said in a statement.
