BELGRADE, July 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Serbia and Montenegro will withdraw the lawsuit filed against NATO by the government of former Yugoslavia over the bloc's bombing in 1999, Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic announced here on Friday.

    After talking with his visiting French counterpart, Michel Barnier, Draskovic told reporters that the Ministers Council of Serbia and Montenegro will drop the case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the 78-day-long bombing campaign launched by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

    No requirement was attached to the decision, he stressed.

    Meanwhile, Draskovic asked the European Union (EU) to urge Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia to abandon their cases against Serbia and Montenegro over the 1991-1995 Balkan wars in the ICJ based in The Hague.

    It was the former Yugoslav government led by Slobodan Milosevic,not Serbia and Montenegro, that was responsible for the atrocitiesagainst Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, he explained.

    With all the three countries seeking membership in NATO and the EU, they are expected to live together as allies and friends in a "new Europe," and should not allow the charges filed against the former government of Milosevic stand in the way of further development of their relations. Enditem