EU sees association pact with Bosnia soon

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - The European Union hopes to sign an agreement on closer ties with Bosnia in March or April, as soon as the Balkan country completes an overdue police reform, the bloc's president Slovenia said on Monday.

Bosnian Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj said the reform of Bosnia's ethnically separate police forces would be completed in March.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel told a joint news conference with Alkalaj the EU was ready to sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Bosnia immediately after that.

Bosnia initialed the SAA, the first rung on the ladder to EU membership, in December.

Alkalaj rejected Bosnian Serbs' threat to hold a referendum on secession from Bosnia if the majority of U.N. member states and the European Union recognize Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia on February 17.

"According to the Dayton agreement, no part of Bosnia and Herzegovina has the right to secede," said Alkalaj.

The Dayton agreement ended the 1992-95 war among Bosnia's Muslims, Croats and Serbs and organized the country as two autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation.

Alkalaj said Bosnia was not likely to recognize independent Kosovo at present.

"You have to understand the complexity of Bosnia. It is composed of three nations, of which 35 percent represent Serbs in Bosnia who have family and other sentimental relations with Serbia and Kosovo ... so we cannot reach a consensus on this question," he said.