ANKARA (AFP) - Members of a banned pro-Kurdish movement yesterday announced the establishment of a new party to campaign for the rights of the troubled Kurdish minority in Turkey. The Free Society Party “will aim at the resolution of the Kurdish question in line with democratic standards and Turkey’s territorial integrity,” the leader of the group, Ahmet Turan Demir, told AFP. Demir and several other founders were members of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish movement, the People’s Democratic Party (HADEP), which was banned in March for links with armed separatist Kurdish rebels. HADEP has denied any such links.

PODGORICA (AP) - The United States sharply criticized Montenegro yesterday for its handling of a human-trafficking scandal that allegedly involved some of the republic’s top officials. In a statement issued by the US Embassy in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, the US government said it was “deeply disappointed” that no indictments were issued in the case, and demanded renewed efforts at bringing those responsible to justice. The sex-trafficking scandal erupted last year after a Moldovan woman who escaped from a brothel near the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, accused several prominent figures, including the brother of the president, of being involved in the sex-trafficking network.

Hundreds gathered amid heavy security at a rural graveyard in Kosovo yesterday to bury three Serbs slain in the most serious ethnically motivated attack in two years. Bishop Artemije, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, led the procession and accused the United Nations and NATO of failing to prevent the slayings. “The biggest hypocrisy is that these violent crimes happen in the presence of the international community,” Artemije was quoted by Belgrade-based Beta news agency as saying. (AP)

Istanbul is bidding to host the 2012 Olympic Games despite failures in its last three consecutive tries, Turkey’s National Olympic Committee announced yesterday. The announcement at a meeting of government and city officials and the Olympic Committee pits Istanbul against New York, Paris, London, Moscow, Madrid, Havana, and Leipzig, which are also competing to host the Summer Games. (AP)

Bulgarian police arrested 10 people suspected of belonging to a euro counterfeiting ring, authorities said yesterday. The arrests were made earlier this week in Sofia and in the town of Shumen, 370 kilometers (230 miles) northeast of the capital, said Rumen Milanov, who heads an organized crime investigative unit. Hundreds of thousands of fake euros were seized. “We have evidence that a part of the money was to be smuggled out of the country by Bulgarians who would be traveling abroad,” Milanov said. (AP)