EU officials hoped that ministers would ask the two Western Balkan countries to sign a SAA.

European Union officials are hopeful they can get unanimous backing to offer Serbia a pre-membership agreement in an effort to persuade voters to back pro-western parties in important May elections.
According to AP, officials fear the election could be won by ultranationalists who would steer Serbia away from closer ties with the EU.
The Netherlands and Belgium have signaled they could drop their objections to an aid and trade pact with Serbia at EU foreign ministers talks on Tuesday. But Dutch diplomats said they still wanted to ensure that Serbia cooperates with a UN tribunal by handing over indicted war criminal suspects.

Signing the SAA
EU officials were hoping that ministers would ask the two Western Balkan countries to sign a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), a precursor to full EU membership talks, said DPA.
“We are working towards a signature today,“ said Slovenian Foreign Minster Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, ahead of the ministers’ arrival in Luxembourg.
While the signature of Bosnia’s SAA is widely seen as a done deal, Serbia’s is hampered by opposition m the Netherlands, which insists that Belgrade must first show that it is cooperating fully with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague by handing over all remaining war-crimes suspects.
The agreement would be a step toward eventual Serbian membership in the EU.
The ministers are expected to agree to offer a similar pact to Bosnia, after it adopted reforms of the country’s ethnically divided police forces.
However, Lithuania has hitherto opposed the opening of talks in protest at Russia’s closure of oil to its only refinery, and Moscow’s recent decision to open relations with the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Responses to latest developments in Myanmar, Zimbabwe and the Middle East were also on the ministers’ official agenda.
Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the EU presidency, told reporters he talked with his Serb counterpart, Vuk Jeremic, on Monday to assure moderate Serb leaders the EU would help lure Serb voters away from ultranationalist parties.

Blocking Membership
Belgium and the Netherlands blocked the signing of the accord for months. But both countries are under heavy pressure to relent because of fears the ultranationalists will win Serbia’s May 11 parliamentary vote.
The Dutch and Belgian governments had insisted that Serbia hand over former Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, and ex-political leader Radovan Karadzic to the UN court in the Netherlands before a pre-membership accord could be signed.
But that condition might now be dropped, diplomats said.
The two countries could still delay ratifying it. Mladic and Karadzic are sought on genocide charges by the UN war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands, for allegedly orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica along with other atrocities of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.
Jeremic said Serbia had met the Dutch and Belgian conditions and called on the EU to sign the pact.
The accord--which would offer Serbia increased aid, trade and technical expertise to prepare it for possible EU membership--had been offered for months. But it was put on
hold following Kosovo’s declaration of independence Feb. 17, which soured EU-Serbia ties.
In the accord, the EU also would offer Serbs visa-free travel to the bloc for students and business travelers.
Pro-European parties in Serbia have pleaded with the European Union to sign the accord, saying it would help them in the election.

The separatist Georgian province of Abkhazia will sign a deal for military protectorate status with Russia, its “foreign minister“ Sergei Chamba told a Russian news agency Monday.
“We are ready to sign a military accord with Russia... We are ready to respect Russia’s interests in the region in exchange for a military protectorate (status) and economic cooperation,“ Ria Novosti quoted Chamba as saying.
“Abkhazia is ready to provide Russia with everything it needs to deploy military bases,“ Chamba added in an interview with Moscow’s Echo radio.
On Friday, a high-ranking Russian diplomat said Russia was ready to intervene militarily in the area if conflict developed between Georgia and its secessionist territories of Abkhazia or South Ossetia.
Senior Russian Foreign Ministry official Valery Kenyaikin said Russia “will have to react, including with military means.“

Zimbabwe’s opposition movement healed long-standing divisions and declared that it has won control of Parliament for the first time in history--and that President Robert Mugabe must concede defeat.
According to AP, they also appealed to the UN Security Council to send a special envoy to Zimbabwe and to warn Mugabe that the mounting violence against opposition supporters was tantamount to Putting months of bickering behind them, Movement for Democratic Change leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara stood united to order Mugabe to step aside.
“Old man, go and have an honorable exit,“ Tsvangirai said in a message Monday to the 84-year-old autocrat who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.
“In a parliamentary democracy, the majority rule,“ Tsvangirai said alongside Mutambara at a news conference at a Johannesburg airport.
More than a month after the elections, results from the presidential race have not been announced. Tsvangirai maintains that he won the presidency outright--although independent observers say he fell just short of the votes needed to avoid a runoff.

Hillary Rodham Clinton now leads John McCain by nine points in a head-to-head presidential match up, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than Democratic rival Barack Obama. Obama and Republican McCain are running about even.
The survey released Monday gives the New York senator and former first lady a fresh talking point as she works to raise much-needed campaign cash and persuade pivotal undecided super delegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight.
Helped by independents, young people and seniors, Clinton gained ground this month in a hypothetical match with Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting. She now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.
Both Democrats were roughly even with McCain in the previous poll about three weeks ago.

Malaysia’s king urged lawmakers to preserve racial peace as he formally opened the multiethnic country’s new Parliament on Tuesday, packed with a record number of opposition members, reported AP.
Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia’s constitutional monarch, noted that “the key to this country’s success is political stability and racial unity.’’
“With that I urge all parties to bear the responsibility of ensuring that all races are united and to combat any efforts to split the people,’’ he said in a speech to the joint sitting of the lower and upper chambers of Parliament.
A record number of 82 opposition legislators were elected to the 222-member lower house in the March 8 general elections, which dramatically changed the balance of power for the first time in history.
The ruling National Front coalition, which has been in power since independence in 1957, lost its traditional two-thirds majority, winning only 140 seats.