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(AP) The noose is tightening around war crimes fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Serbian media said Wednesday, predicting that the wartime Bosnian Serb army commander's extradition to the UN war crimes tribunal is a matter of days away.

The Blic daily said that an envoy of Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is bringing negotiations "to a close" on Mladic's surrender.

Mladic was indicted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands on genocide charges for the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 and for the armed siege of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Mladic, who was believed to be hiding in Serbia or in the Serb-controlled half of neighbouring Bosnia, was "never closer to a surrender," claimed another Belgrade newspaper, the Vecernje Novosti.

Government officials refused to confirm or deny the reports, which said that Mladic would be arrested by Dec. 15 if he does not surrender voluntarily.

"It is very important that Serbia-Montenegro solves the question of Mladic by this year's end," said the country's president, Svetozar Marovic.

Blic said that "if the outcome of the negotiations (with Mladic) are not positive, a warrant for his arrest would be issued and the arrest would be carried out" by mid-December.

The tribunal's officials were expected to deliver a report to the UN around Dec. 15 on Serbia-Montenegro's compliance with international demands that Mladic and other Serb war crimes fugitives be arrested.

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[ 16 November 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]