BELGRADE, May 2 (Xinhua) -- The European Union is highly likely to suspend association talks with Serbia-Montenegro as the end-of-April deadline for extraditing top war crimes suspect Ratko Mladichas expired, officials said on Tuesday.

    The EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn would on Wednesday decide whether to proceed the next round of talks between the EU and Serbia-Montenegro for concluding the stabilization and association agreement, the first step for the Balkan country's integration into the 25-nation bloc.

    "It is most probable that this meeting, set for May 11, will be postponed," Serbian Deputy Premier Miroljub Labus said in Brussels after talks with EU officials.

    Mladic, who turned 63 in March, commanded Bosnian Serb armed forces during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. He has been indicted for genocide and other war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

    The ICTY said that Mladic had been taking shelter in Serbia since 1998. But Serbian authorities said that they had no knowledge of Mladic's whereabouts after he left Serbia-Montenegro military facilities in June 2002.

    The extradition of Mladic to ICTY is the main political condition that the European Union has placed on Serbia-Montenegro before concluding the Stabilization and Association Agreement.

    Rasim Ljajic, president of the Serbia-Montenegro National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY, said in a statement on Tuesday that Serbia must double its efforts to see that Mladic finds himself in The Hague tribunal irrespective of Wednesday's decision by Rehn.

    It must be believed that the future actions would yield results, because, otherwise, "the prolonging of the signing of an agreementwith the European Union would slow down the country's progress toward European and Euro-Atlantic integration processes," said Ljajic. Enditem