BELGRADE, March 15: Serbia was brought to a standstill on Saturday as the country buried slain prime minister Zoran Djindjic in Belgrade with highest military honours with hundreds of thousands of people marching silently along the streets of the capital.

Military guards of honour fired a three-shot salute before his coffin was lowered into the ground at the cemetery’s Merit Alley, amid a heavy security presence throughout the capital.

The prime ministers of Albania, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania and Slovakia attended the service, along with Foreign Minister George Papandreou of Greece, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

The UN representatives in Bosnia and Kosovo, Paddy Ashdown and Michael Steiner, European Commission chief Romani Prodi and US envoy Lawrence Eagelberger were among more than 70 foreign dignitaries attending the funeral.

Speaking at the funeral, Papandreou said Serbia and Montenegro “will be a part of our Europe. I solemnly make this pledge to you, Zoran, and to Serbia and Montenegro, that you will be part of Europe, of our Europe,” Papandreou said.

“We all stand committed to the vision you have offered to your country... To your vision of Serbia and Montenegro into our union,” he said. Djindjic, 50, one of the key figures in toppling nationalist strongman Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000, had worked for Serbia and Montenegro to become a member of the EU. His assassination on Wednesday was the first of a European head of government since Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was shot dead on a Stockholm street in 1986.—AFP