BERLIN (Reuters) - German conservatives risk hurting relations between Turkey and the European Union with their opposition to Ankara’s drive for full EU membership, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Saturday. “The aim of Turkey is full membership in the EU. We are not ready to accept anything else,” Erdogan told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview issued ahead of publication. “Suggestions, such as those coming from the CDU/CSU [Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union], put relations between Turkey and the EU at risk,” he said. “They do not help our joint aim of bringing European integration forward.”

VIENNA (AP) - Turkey’s foreign minister outlined the advantages of European Union membership and promised further reforms, speaking Saturday before a forum in Austria, a local news agency reported. Abdullah Gul stressed that Turkey remained in the running for membership, arguing that French and Dutch votes against the European Constitution were not expressly against Turkey. Granting Turkey’s membership would bring 80 million consumers and oil and gas terminals into the EU, he said.

A plane carrying the soccer team of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) was forced to turn back mid-air after being denied permission to land in Armenia by Turkish authorities, who threatened to shoot it down, media in Skopje reported Saturday. The plane carrying the players to their World Cup qualifying match with Armenia was surrounded by two military jets and denied permission to land in neighboring Armenia as it prepared to descend, the FYROM daily Utrinski Vesnik said. Instead, the pilot decided to return to Skopje. UEFA ruled the match had to go ahead. FYROM won 2-1. (AFP)

A journalist was shot in the head and seriously wounded by an unidentified gunman in east Kosovo, police said Saturday. Police said the shooting occurred Friday night, 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of the capital Pristina when the journalist, Bardhul Ajeti, got out of his car after a breakdown and was helping other traffic to pass. Officers said someone in a passing car opened fire. Doctors said Ajeti’s wound was life-threatening. (AFP)

Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said yesterday that he was opposed to a retrial of jailed Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan taking place in a foreign country, Anatolia news agency reported. Cicek said he had not received any request to move the trial overseas and that such a move was “inconceivable.” (AFP)