Acting under intense international pressure, Yugoslavia's government yesterday approved draft legislation that could lead to the extradition of the former president, Mr Slobodan Milo sevic, to the war crimes court in The Hague.
President Vojislav Kostunica said the bill will be presented to the two-chamber Yugoslav parliament for its approval "very soon" and declared that he was "optimistic" about prospects for its adoption.
But he insisted that the bill on co-operating with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) did not provide for "automatic extradition" of Yugoslav nationals to the Netherlands for trial.
"There can be no automatic extradition of people indicted" by the UN court for war crimes, he said.
Describing the draft law as "important step" in co-operation with the tribunal, Mr Kostunica announced that "the draft law on co-operation was adopted at the government session today, so it goes into the parliament procedure now".
He also played down a rift between Serbia's ruling coalition DOS and its uneasy partners at the federal level, the Montenegrin Socialist People's party (SNP) over the draft.
The SNP, until last October allied with Mr Milosevic, has been stonewalling the law, refusing to accept the extradition measure.
The bill will not win parliamentary approval without support from the Montenegrin party, which argues that the decision to extradite war crimes suspects should be taken at the level of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.
The Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Mr Goran Svilanovic, told Belgrade radio B92 that the latest draft contained changes that "should go towards a compromise" between the parties in parliament.
These changes include specifying that the "republics decide whether to hand over suspects to the tribunal, and the decision is made by the republic's government," the Yugoslav Information Minister, Mr Slobodan Orlic, said.
Mr Kostunica insisted that, during his talks with the SNP, "I felt that this party wants to maintain good relations with the international community and within Yugoslavia."
However, he indicated that the text of the draft could be amended by the parliament. Mr Kostunica argued that the bill was "important since it would allow us to co-operate normally with the international community and preserve our joint state".
Mr Milosevic is currently in jail on charges of corruption and abuse of power.
He, along with four of his former associates, has been indicted by the ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity for the crackdown of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority in 1998-1999.