PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo said yesterday it expected the United Nations to grant the Serbian province independence «very soon» and urged Russia to drop its opposition to a Western-drafted Security Council resolution. The forecast followed local media reports that the Council could vote on the resolution this month. Western members last week circulated a draft text supporting a plan by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari and effectively clearing the decks for a declaration of independence by Kosovo's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority. The United States says it hopes the Council will act «promptly» on the resolution, and that differences with veto holder Russia should not be insurmountable. Asked by reporters when he expected the vote to happen, Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku replied, «Very soon.» President Fatmir Sejdiu said: «We have seen the efforts of international community, the European Union and the United States to come up with a new resolution supporting Ahtisaari's plan. We would like Russia to be part of this.»

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will deliver a report to the United Nations this week spelling out its concerns about militant Kurdish separatists in Iraq and reaffirming its legal right to take action against them, a foreign ministry official said yesterday. The news comes as Turkey reinforces its troops along the border with Iraq and the powerful army General Staff stresses its readiness for a cross-border operation to crush guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). «Diplomacy first,» said yesterday's Sabah newspaper headline, saying the UN move prepared the legal and diplomatic ground for the possible military operation, which has already sparked alarm in the US, Turkey's NATO ally. The foreign ministry official told Reuters Turkey's permanent UN representative, Baki Ilkin, would hold talks with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week.

Turkish police arrested a Kurdish militant believed to be behind a bomb attack last month in the western city of Izmir that killed one person and injured 15, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. The suspect, identified only by his initials O.Y., is a member of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting a bloody separatist campaign for the past 22 years, the report said. (AFP)

Four senior Albanian policemen have been arrested for running a human-trafficking network into Greece, a police statement said yesterday. The head of the border police unit and three other senior police officers had collaborated with five other people in the southern town of Gjirokaster, 225 kilometers south of Tirana, to traffic people into Greece. The international community has told Albania it must curb trafficking if it wants to join the EU and NATO. (AP)