BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said yesterday his government was drafting a proposal for autonomy to protect minority Serbs in Kosovo, but ruled out partition of the United Nations-run province. In an interview with the daily Politika, Kostunica said his coalition would soon come out very “firmly, persuasively and decisively” with a solution that would ensure more safety for Kosovo Serbs and the return of the displaced. “Whatever we call it — decentralization, cantonization, it does not matter — Serbs in Kosovo must be given some kind of autonomy,” Kostunica said in the interview.

SARAJEVO (AP) - Paddy Ashdown, Bosnia’s top international official, has sanctioned the ruling party in the Serb part of Bosnia for failing to fully cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal, his office said on Saturday. Ashdown on Friday sanctioned the hardline Serb Democratic Party, his office said in a statement. “The SDS was founded by an indicted war criminal who remains at large. We have good reason to believe the SDS still maintains financial connections with its founder Radovan Karadzic,” the statement said, referring to the party by its Serbian abbreviation.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul called on the large Turkish community in the Netherlands on Saturday to help win Dutch support for Turkey’s bid to join the EU by working harder at integration. “The better the integration, the better the connection,” Gul told an event in Rotterdam to celebrate 40 years of Turkish immigration to the Netherlands. In December, when the Dutch will be holding the EU presidency, EU leaders are due to decide whether to open membership talks with Turkey. “In the eyes of many trendsetting voices, we are profiteers... what we have brought is criminality, oppression of women, fundamentalism and hotbeds of terrorism.” Gul said he hoped the Dutch authorities would support efforts by the Turkish community to improve integration. (Reuters)

Turkish police have taken into custody at least eight more people in an operation against an outlawed armed Turkish Marxist group which has seen dozens of suspects detained in five European countries, the Anatolia news agency reported Saturday. Three people were detained in Istanbul, one in the western city of Izmir and four in the northwestern city of Bursa, Anatolia said. (AFP)

A 4.3 Richter earthquake struck Romania yesterday. There were no reports of injuries or damage. (AP)