JERUSALEM (AP) - Turkey’s prime minister kept up a wave of criticism of Israel, comparing its actions against the Palestinians to the brutal treatment of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition in the late 15th century, according to an interview published yesterday. “Today, the Palestinians are the victims, and unfortunately the people of Israel are treating the Palestinians as they were treated 500 years ago. Bombing people — civilians — from helicopters, killing people without any consideration — children, women, the elderly — razing their buildings using bulldozers.” Erdogan said that while he believed the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was not contributing to peace efforts, the bond between the people of Turkey and the people of Israel remained strong. “As far as the Turkish side is concerned, there are no problems here,” he said in an interview with Israel’s Haaretz daily.

MOSCOW (AP) - Serbia’s infrastructure, shattered in the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, should be rebuilt by those who ruined it, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica yesterday. “Bridges in Belgrade are still lying about in the Danube and all European transport companies suffer losses because of this,” Putin added. The infrastructure must be restored “by those who with their bombers destroyed the objects of its infrastructure,” Putin said at a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Local and international experts yesterday urged the EU to rethink its insistence on having Bulgaria mothball two of its nuclear power plant reactors, saying the economically struggling country would lose billions of euros as a result. Bulgaria should ask the EU “to revise the decision for an early shutdown” of the units at the Kozloduy plant, Yanko Yanev, an expert with the International Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted as saying by Bulgarian national radio. More than 200 nuclear experts at a conference in the Black Sea port of Varna adopted a declaration, saying the nuclear facility was safe and there was no need for its early shutdown. (AP)

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Yugoslavia’s Parliament late Wednesday voted in a new government, led by ex-interior minister Hari Kostov, after a three-day debate. Kostov, an economist by training who has no political party affiliation, replaces Branko Crvenkovski in the post. Crvenkovski vacated the PM’s role when he was elected president of FYROM last month. (AFP)

Bulgaria and Romania took a major step toward joining the EU when member states agreed yesterday to wrap up accession negotiations with the countries in the difficult area of agriculture. Ambassadors of the EU’s 25 members approved the deal in the version proposed by the EU’s Commission, which wants a 10-year phase-in of the bloc’s agricultural aid in Bulgaria and Romania, diplomats said. (Reuters)