Serbia is likely to apply this year to join the European Union, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said on Thursday after meeting Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.

"We believe that the basic groundwork has been laid out to submit the application to the EU. We have a strong intention to do it before the end of this year," he told a news conference.

Rehn said Serbia must first show it was cooperating fully with the U.N. court on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

"The full cooperation of Serbia with ICTY (the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) remains a necessary condition for moving forward with the EU accession process," Rehn told the news conference.

He said that in his view Serbia had been cooperating well but he was awaiting a report from the court's chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz.

Serbia has been applauded for arresting Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who had been living in disguise in the Serbian capital Belgrade, and handing him over to the tribunal.

But some diplomats say the country will not be deemed to be cooperating fully until it catches another indicted war criminal, former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic.

Reuters