By Daisy Ayliffe - 13th March 2006
EU foreign ministers responded to the death of Slobodan Milosevic with a renewed promise that countries of the former Yugoslavia can join the EU.
But ministers also warned Serbia that it needed to get to grips with its past.
"Our goal is the western Balkans' membership of the EU," said Ursula Plassnik, Austrian foreign minister, who chaired the Salzburg meeting of ministers on Friday and Saturday.
"Stability in the Balkans is part of our own security. This [death] does not change or alter in any way the need to come to terms with the legacy of the past, the legacy of which Slobodan Milosevic has been a part.”
Milosevic’ death highlights continued divisions within in the Western Balkans as Serbia prepares for EU entry.
More than a decade after the country was dismembered by brutal wars, the former leader’s death has revealed splits between Serb nationalists and their Muslim counterparts.
In Belgrade nationalists mourned the death of their former champion and president over the weekend.
Meanwhile in Sarajevo, Muslims have expressed disappointment that Milosevic had cheated justice.
The 64 year old who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure was found dead on Saturday.
His death comes just months before a verdict was due in his trial on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the 1990s.
The chief UN war crimes prosecutor said on Sunday it was possible Milosevic had committed suicide.
A furious Carla Del Ponte said his death deprived “the victims of the justice they need and deserve.”
But Milosevic's lawyer said his client had feared he was being poisoned – this claim was roundly rejected by the UN war crimes prosecutor.
Dutch scientists have concluded an autopsy on Milosevic's body but on Sunday they did not indicate the cause of death.
"We are waiting to see if we get the results and will put out a statement if we do," a tribunal spokeswoman told reporters.
Milosevic played a pivotal role in one of the bloodiest periods in modern European history.
He led Serbia into four wars, international isolation and economic crisis.
Officials in Brussels will be asking if they can use the death to bring Serbia in from the cold - but critics of further enlargement argue the process cannot begin until Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, have been arrested.
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