ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey’s main Kurdish political movement, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), is determined to enter parliament in general elections in November despite the high threshold, its chairman said yesterday. “We will definitely have a group in parliament in the next term,” Ahmet Turk said in a speech at a party convention here, the Anatolia news agency reported. “We will be aiming for parliament, even if it requires independent candidates,” he said, arguing that the 10 percent national threshold to enter parliament had been designed to stop Kurdish parties from winning seats.

PRISTINA (AP) – Five Kosovo Albanians have been charged with crimes allegedly committed during deadly anti-Serb riots almost three years ago, the United Nations said yesterday. “The suspects have been charged for their direct participation in a series of criminal acts including arson and looting of buildings, houses and vehicles in Kosovo Polje during the March 2004 riots,” the spokesman for the UN mission in Kosovo, Neeraj Singh, told reporters. “In addition, there are another 11 suspects, 10 of them juveniles, who are still under pretrial investigation on suspicion of involvement in the burning of several buildings in Kosovo Polje,” near the capital Pristina.

Over 750 kilograms of drugs seized in Bulgaria in 2005 and 2006 and worth about –40 million ($53 million) on the black market were destroyed in Sofia yesterday, the customs agency said. A total of 766 kilograms (1,698 pounds) of drugs, including 225 kilos of amphetamines, 210 kilos of heroin and 175 kilos of marijuana, were incinerated, the agency said in a statement. Located on the drug-trafficking route between Asia and Europe, Bulgaria has destroyed some 16,577 tons of drugs since 2000. (AFP)

The Romanian parliament voted yesterday to launch an inquiry commission against President Traian Basescu, who is accused of “serious violations of the constitution.” A total of 258 deputies voted to set up the commission, while 76 voted against and 21 abstained. The commission of 15 members will have three weeks to “find additional arguments” to support a motion, filed two weeks ago by the opposition, to impeach Basescu. Senators and MPs from the president’s Democratic Party were the only ones to oppose the initiative. (AFP)