MADRID (AFP) – Spain will demand that the European Union’s peacekeeping force in Bosnia, EUFOR-Althea, be transformed into a civilian mission, its Defense Ministry said yesterday. Defense Minister Carme Chacon made the announcement during an appearance before Spanish senators and will formally make the request at a two-day meeting of EU defense ministers starting today in Deauville, France, the ministry said in a statement. “After 15 years of Spain’s uninterrupted presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the transfer of responsibilities from the EUFOR operation to the armed forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina is practically completed,” the statement said. The minister will ask her peers to transform “EUFOR-Althea into an essentially civilian operation, as long as the situation on the ground allows it,” it added.

STRASBOURG (AP) – Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias (photo) says he has called on UN and Turkish-Cypriot leaders to abolish annual military exercises and to demilitarize Cyprus’s divided capital city. Christofias says the moves could increase the chances of success of reunification talks with Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat. The Greek-Cypriot leader spoke to European lawmakers at the Council of Europe yesterday. He said he urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to back an agreement to abolish the regular military exercises held separately by Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot forces. The exercises have in past years increased tension between Cyprus and Turkey. Turkey has some 40,000 troops in the northern part of the divided island.

ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey hopes to complete construction of an undersea water pipeline to northern Cyprus by June 2009 to help it battle droughts, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. The project, which was launched in 2000 following a severe water shortage on the parched island, aims to pump 75 million cubic meters of water to the breakaway Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus every year. Anatolia, citing sources in Turkey’s hydraulic works authority, said the plan is to finish the 110-kilometer (70-mile) Mediterranean pipeline by June 14. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said in July that the government wanted the project to be completed within three years.

A European media group voiced concern yesterday about growing threats to journalists in Croatia, calling on the country’s authorities to protect them. “The European Federation of Journalists is shocked that verbal and physical attacks on journalists have become routine practice in Croatia,” the EFJ said in a statement. “Throughout Europe, we are increasingly concerned that journalists are imperilled in Croatia,” it said, noting that four Croatian journalists had been beaten and one had received a death threat so far this year. The group singled out the case of Dusan Miljus, a reporter for a leading Croatian daily who was hospitalized with a broken arm, concussion and facial injuries after being beaten with a metal bat in June. (AFP)

The UN’s Yugoslav war crimes court Monday curbed special communications privileges allowed for Serb ultra-nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj, saying he may have abused them to intimidate witnesses. “The registrar... has reasonable grounds to believe that the privileged communications facilities provided to the accused for communication with his registered legal advisers have been used for communication with other persons,” said a statement from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia based in The Hague. Seselj may still communicate with his legal advisers through the visits, telephone calls and mail allowed all detainees of the tribunal, said the statement. (AFP)