Cook rides Russian anger over arrests in Bosnia arrests

A still-smarting Russia yesterday warned against any repeat of last week's British-led operation by Nato to arrest two alleged Bosnian Serb war criminals. It denounced the action as desta- bilising, counter-productive, and outside the mandate of the international peace-keeping force in the former Yugoslav republic.

Speaking after an otherwise harmonious meeting with his visiting British counterpart, Robin Cook, the foreign minister, Yevgeny Primakov, left no doubt of Moscow's anger at not being consulted over the move against members of a Serb community with which it has deep historical and cultural ties. "We were not notified about the specifics and we weren't even notified in general that things of this kind could take place."

Mr Cook, however, kept his promise before this first foray to Russia by a member of the new Labour government, that he would be "diplomatic but unrepentant" over the strike by British special forces. He was "unaware" of any further sealed indictments against suspected war criminals in the British sector of Bosnia, but refused to rule out more arrests should they be requested.

He also welcomed the 20-year sentence handed down yesterday in The Hague against Dusan Tadic, the first Serb to be convicted of atrocities in the Bosnian war, saying it sent a clear message that there would be "no escape" from sentences which matched the crimes.

Left unchecked, however, the argument over Bosnia - and certainly any moves by Nato to apprehend either Radovan Karadzic or Ratko Mladic, authors of ethnic cleansing in the Muslim Republic and top of the most-wanted list - could torpedo efforts to build closer political and military links between Nato and Russia through the new Joint Council, whose first ministerial session is scheduled for New York this September.

Russian politicians see the body as a symbol of defeat for Moscow in its attempt to block Nato's recent expansion. But Britain wants to use it to knit the Russian military more closely into future peace-keeping missions, to monitor progress by Russia in eliminating tactical nuclear weapons, and to keep tabs on technology shipments by Moscow to countries like Iran which might violate existing arms proliferation agreements.

Mr Primakov also signalled displeasure over any effort to include the three former Soviet Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in Nato's next round of expansion, which could take place in two years.

Here, Mr Cook was more accommodating of Moscow's fear that the United States, pressed by vociferous ethnic Baltic groups, might be edging towards just such a decision - which would bring the alliance within a few miles of St Petersburg, Russia's second city.

Ruling out any question of a Russian veto over new members, Mr Cook stressed that further enlargement was "some way down the track", and that this month's deal to admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic was a mouthful Nato would need some time to digest.