De Hoop Scheffer called for further military reform in Serbia-Montenegro after he met President Svetozar Marovic at the start of an official visit.

Serbia-Montenegro also must drop its suit against NATO in the International Court of Justice over the alliance's bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war in 1999, he said.

"Full cooperation with the tribunal at The Hague and the end of the case with the International Court of Justice are of course, as we all know, important preconditions for this development of the relationship," he said.

"I sincerely hope that we'll see a political push in Serbia-Montenegro... because I think everybody -- NATO, the government of Serbia-Montenegro -- has a great interest in stability in this very important region."

De Hoop Scheffer said NATO leaders gave a "really clear signal" at their summit in Turkey last month that they wanted Serbia-Montenegro as a full member of the alliance.

Serbia-Montenegro is the loose union of neighbouring Balkan republics which replaced the dissolved Yugoslav federation last year.

Belgrade is hoping to join NATO's Partnership for Peace programme, a key step toward membership, but has been blocked due to its failure to arrest suspects wanted for war crimes committed in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

De Hoop Scheffer said the international community understood Belgrade's ambition to become a member of NATO and the European Union but first it had to show that it shared those groupings' "values".

One of the Balkans' most wanted fugitives, former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, is allegedly hiding in Serbia but Belgrade insists it has no knowledge of his whereabouts.

Meanwhile four Serbian police and military generals were indicted by the UN court for war crimes last year, but the Serbian government has shown little interest in extraditing them, claiming the court is biased against Serbs.

Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said the timeline for Belgrade's integration with Euro-Atlantic structures depended on the "speed with which we fulfil our international obligations".

He also said Belgrade was "close to the idea of withdrawing claims" against NATO member countries for the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, which the authorities here have long claimed to be against international law.

Human Rights Watch, an independent US-based watchdog, estimates that from March to June 1999 between 488 and 527 civilians were killed during the NATO bombardments in Kosovo and Serbia.

"We are trying to join the Partnership for Peace programme and at the same time we are suing (NATO) members," Draskovic said.

Meanwhile chief UN prosecutor Carla Del Ponte gave Belgrade yet another tongue-lashing for its failure to arrest a Croatian Serb war crimes suspect.

The indictment against former Croatian Serb "president" and rebel leader Goran Hadzic was presented to the authorities here last Tuesday but the suspect disappeared from his house in Novi Sad, northern Serbia, on Friday.

"The events of last week constitute the second time since the beginning of the year when we can actually see for ourselves indictees, located by my office, fleeing in a hurry just hours after the Belgrade authorities have been requested to act upon arrest warrants," Del Ponte said at The Hague.

Hadzic joined the ranks of the 22 fugitives from the tribunal who are still at large. Del Ponte said the majority of the fugitives was within the territory of Serbia and Montenegro.

WAR.WIRE