The head of NATO headquarters here, US General Steven Schook, accused Bosnian Serb leading nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS) of hampering the defence reform.

The party's moves "prevent... developing the full range of proposals needed to accelerate a defence reform, primarily the single defence ministry," Schook said.

The parliament of Serb-run Republika Srpska, which along with the Muslim-Croat federation makes up post-war Bosnia, adopted in March a resolution saying that the "abolition of the defence ministry of Republika Srpska and the transfer of its competences onto Bosnian level is unacceptable."

The two entities' armies have remained separate and each army has its own defence ministry, but politicians formed last year another defence ministry at the state level.

General Schook praised Bosnian Serbs' recent efforts to bring several fugitive suspects to the UN war crimes court, but said he was disappointed that the two most wanted -- wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic -- have not been apprehended yet.

They are charged with genocide committed during the 1992-95 war.

"Little progress has been seen on those two in particular," he said.

NATO has already decided not to invite Bosnia to join its PfP programme at its June summit in Istanbul because of the Bosnian Serbs' failure to cooperate with the UN war crimes court.

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