Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime army commander accused of genocide, could be arrested "within a few weeks" if Serbia's new government continues co-operating as the European Union demands, according to the chief prosecutor at the United Nations tribunal in The Hague.

Carla del Ponte said: "I hope in a few weeks we will see full co-operation", which she went on to define as the arrest and extradition of General Mladic. "We have had some concrete signs of good co-operation."