First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dačić talked today with Prosecutor of the newly-established Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) Hassan Jallow, who is paying an official visit to Belgrade.

The MICT is taking over from the ICTY a number of important tasks, including possible appeal proceedings in the cases of Karadzic, Mladic, Hadzic and Seselj.

The talks focused on the cooperation between the Republic of Serbia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) thus far, as well as on future MICT activities, established with the aim of continuing the key functions of the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, the so-called Residual Mechanism, was established under the decision of the UN Security Council of 22 December 2010 with the task of continuing the key functions of the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, following the termination of their mandates.

The Mechanism will continue its work pending the adoption of a UNSC resolution on its closing. Its work will be reviewed for the first time in 2016 and subsequently, on a biennial basis.

Minister Dačić expressed the readiness on the part of the Serbian side for further cooperation, underlining that protracted trials before the ICTY are inadmissible. Furthermore, the Serbian Foreign Minister urged that the largest possible number of convicted Serbian nationals serve their prison terms in Serbia.

Prosecutor Jallow announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the newly-established Mechanism and the Office of the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor.

In addition to having close cooperation with the national War Crimes Prosecutor's Office, the Office of the MICT Prosecutor will also assist in overseeing cases transferred to the jurisdiction of national courts in the region.