BELGRADE, Serbia - An EU envoy flew to Belgrade Wednesday to urge Serbia's new pro-reform Cabinet to speed up arrests of war crime suspects.

Olli Rehn, EU enlargement commissioner, told reporters he was in Serbia to encourage the new Serbian pro-European coalition government to intensify cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Belgrade's B92 radio reported Wednesday. The new Cabinet was announced just before a midnight Tuesday deadline.

The cooperation means the handing over to the tribunal of war crime suspects including former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, sought on genocide charges in the 1991-95 Yugoslav ethnic wars. It is a precondition for Belgrade to resume association talks with the EU.

Brussels leaders put off the association talks with Belgrade in May last year after the Serbian government failed to keep its promise to hand over Mladic to the tribunal.

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