THE HAGUE, Aug. 7 - Ukraine signed an agreement Tuesday with the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to incarcerate convicted criminals, the first country outside Western Europe to offer its prisons to the U.N. court, The Associated Press reported.

The tribunal said Ukraine became the 12th country to sign an enforcement agreement. The court was established in 1993 to prosecute those most responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the 1999 Kosovo war.