ANKARA (AP) – The Turkish military said it launched a joint drill with Syrian soldiers on their shared border yesterday in order to improve security. Israel, an ally of Turkey and a longtime foe of Syria, expressed concern. Military teams from Turkey and Syria were scheduled to cross the border and visit outposts during the three-day exercises, the Turkish military said. It described the drill as the “first-ever” between the countries. There was no mention of the joint operation in Syrian media. However, government newspapers reported yesterday that Syrian Defense Minister Hassan Ali Turkmani had begun a five-day visit to Turkey for talks with Turkish officials and also to attend an international defense fair in Istanbul. In Istanbul, senior defense officials from Turkey and Syria also signed an agreement for cooperation in the defense industry, the Anatolia news agency reported.

BELGRADE (AP) – Serbian police say they have arrested a well-known organized crime boss in connection with last year’s killing of a prominent Croatian journalist. Police say Sreten Jocic was arrested yesterday on suspicion he was involved in the killing of Ivo Pukanic last October in Zagreb. Pukanic and an associate died in an explosion. Pukanic’s newspaper Nacional frequently published articles about organized crime. Five people had been arrested earlier in Croatia for the killing. The B92 TV station reported that Jocic was arrested in a house he rented from late President Slobodan Milosevic’s family in an upscale Belgrade neighborhood.

YEREVAN (AP) – A party in Armenia’s governing coalition says it is leaving in a dispute over the recent statement by Armenia and Turkey on improving relations. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun, which holds three cabinet positions and 16 parliament seats, is leaving the coalition to protest at not being consulted on last week’s statement, Armen Rustamian, a member of the party directorate, said yesterday.

Serbia’s prosecutor for war crimes said yesterday that measures were in hand to strip a former Gestapo member, Peter Egner, of US nationality so that he could be prosecuted for Nazi war crimes. “The procedure to deprive Peter Egner of his American citizenship is under way,” prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told journalists. “After that, we will take steps to have him extradited.” At the end of last August, Vukcevic asked for a probe into Egner, 87, on the grounds that as a member of the Gestapo during World War II, he had organized the execution of Jews and other civilians at a camp in Belgrade and another in a suburb of the city. (AFP)

Serbia’s government has formed a special commission to try to locate the grave of a World War II guerrilla leader executed as a traitor by the Communists, officials said yesterday. The location of Dragoljub “Draza” Mihailovic’s grave has been unknown since postwar Communist authorities executed him in 1946 for collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. For decades, the issue has fueled divisions in Serbia, where many believe that Mihailovic was a hero who was killed for his loyalty to the Karadjordjevic royal family which ruled the country before the war. Mihailovic is particularly respected among Serbs in America, most of whom had fled communism. (AP)

Fifteen people were arrested in the southern Bosnian city of Mostar after a group of hooligans attacked a bus carrying fans from another city, national radio reported yesterday. On Sunday evening a group of around 50 hooligans blocked the bus, which was carrying Sloboda fans home from a match in the northern town of Tuzla, and pelted it with stones. A police officer told BH Radio they escorted the fans out of Mostar and that police managed to “save the Sloboda fans from being lynched.” Later, the hooligans set fire to the bus, which was completely destroyed. (AFP)

Turkish television said yesterday that inmates at a prison in southeastern Turkey had set a fire during a riot. CNN-Turk channel said smoke was rising from the roof of the prison near the city of Siirt. The motive of the riot was not immediately clear, but it came after a police crackdown on leftist, Kurdish and Islamic militant groups across Turkey early yesterday. CNN-Turk said police and paramilitary troops had reinforced security at the prison, which mostly houses Kurdish rebels and radical Islamic militants. (AP)