VIENNA (AFP) - Conservative Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, opposed to an automatic accession for Turkey to the EU, said in an interview published yesterday he was “comforted” by growing skepticism in Europe about Ankara’s bid to join the bloc. “More and more countries share our point of view. We need to tell people, and the Turks need to understand, that the process (for Turkey joining the EU) is not guaranteed,” Schuessel told the daily Kleine Zeitung de Graz.

SANAA (AFP) - Turkish Cypriots sat down as observers at the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Yemen this week for the first time as the “Turkish-Cypriot State,” defying Greek-Cypriot lobbying against such a move. “It is not a recognition of a state... They have recognized us as a non-recognized state,” the Turkish-Cypriot foreign affairs chief Sedar Denktash told AFP.

A naturalized Bosnian of Iraqi origin was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday for war crimes committed against civilians during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, a court said in a statement. As a member of the mainly Muslim Bosnian army, Abduladhim Maktouf was found guilty for helping members of the El Mujahed unit, made up of fighters from Islamic countries, to abduct three Croat civilians in 1993. The three were tortured and one of them was later decapitated. (AFP)

An ethnic Serb accused of involvement in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in Bosnia is being investigated for torturing Croatian prisoners at the outbreak of the 1991-95 Serbo-Croatian war, officials said yesterday. “We have received a request for extension of the probe against Slobodan Davidovic to include alleged crimes he committed on Croatian territory in 1991,” Zagreb county court investigative judge Mirko Klinzic told AFP. (AFP)

The Albanian government said yesterday it has decided to use real estate assets seized from persons suspected of having terrorist links. The government will use seized buildings and land as offices for public institutions, it said in a statement. Any revenue generated from the properties will go to the Central Bank of Albania, it said. (AP)

A gunman opened fire on policemen yesterday in western Kosovo, wounding three on-duty officers, a UN police spokeswoman said. The suspect shot the officers with an AK47 assault rifle in the town of Orahovac, spokeswoman Kelly Collins-McMurry said. It was unclear what prompted the shooting. (AP)

A train hit a flock of sheep in southwest Romania, killing 110 of the animals, police said yesterday. The sheep had run away from a nearby farm after they were attacked by wolves, said Dan Bortis, a spokesman for the local police. The accident happened early Thursday near the village of Jena, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) west of Bucharest. (AP)