Serbia's ruling coalition agreed on Wednesday on "basic principles" for a new Yugoslav government, after the federal prime minister resigned in protest at the snap extradition of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic to the UN war crimes tribunal, Beta news agency reported.
A future government would "function until constitutional changes are made and early elections are held at the federal level," Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said after the meeting.
The talks included Federal President Vojislav Kostunica and the members of his Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) party alliance.
The planned new government would also "provide further integration of the country into Europe and the world," the agency quoted Djindjic as saying.
The leaders of Serbia's DOS coalition, including Kostunica, met to discuss further steps after the federal parliament confirmed the resignation of prime minister Zoran Zizic over Milosevic's extradition.
Zizic, member of the Montenegro's Socialist People's party (SNP) stepped down in protest at the decision by the Serbian government, led by Djindjic, to extradite Milosevic over the objections of the SNP and the constitutional court, which is still stacked with loyalists of the old regime.
The SNP, while a minority party in Montenegro, won political clout because the republic's powerful pro-independence alliance boycotted last September's federal elections, unsuccessfully rigged by Milosevic to give him a second term as Yugoslav president.
Djindjic said that Kostunica would continue his consultations with the SNP and its Montenegrin partner, the People's party (NS), on Thursday.
However, he insisted that the DOS would also have as a "priority" a preparation of the new constitution of Yugoslavia, which might end "in two to three weeks."
"A new constitution would see Yugoslavia as an international subject, while all the international relations could be discussed with Montenegro's authorities," Djindjic said.
Montenegro's pro-independence leadership have proposed that the current federation be transformed into a loose union of two separate soverign states tied by a common foreign and defence policy, with no need for their citizens to use passports to travel between them.
(Chinadaily.com.cn 07/05/2001)
