BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union yesterday deplored the action of Romania in signing a deal behind its back with the United States to prevent Americans from being turned over to a new war crimes court. Romania is an aspiring EU and NATO member, and EU officials said they were concerned that other, mostly East European candidates for membership of both organizations were under pressure from Washington to follow suit. Brussels and Washington remain divided on the International Criminal Court (ICC), which the United States vehemently opposes out of fear that hostile nations may abuse the court to bring politically motivated cases against Americans. “We deplore that a candidate country to the EU has not waited for the European Union to establish its final position, which I believe will be taken in early September,” European Commission spokesman Michael Curtis told a daily news briefing.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA (Reuters) - Kosovo’s United Nations administration called yesterday on a local Serb leader to turn himself in after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of attempted murder. Milan Ivanovic has been charged over a violent demonstration in the Serb-dominated north of the flashpoint town of Mitrovica in April. Twenty-two UN police officers were wounded after being attacked by hand grenades and sniper fire, the UN said. Ivanovic, chairman of the Serb National Council for northern Kosovo, said UN police broke into his home in the early hours of yesterday to arrest him, but only his elderly mother was there. He denounced the UN’s moves against him as politically motivated.

US peacekeepers detained 13 alleged extremists in eastern Kosovo early yesterday, a NATO officer told AFP. “The detentions were part of an operation intended to disrupt extremist activities along Kosovo’s border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” US military spokesman Major Mark Ballesteros said. (AFP)

Turkey has repealed a ban on opinion polls and will now allow media to print and broadcast survey results before the general elections of November 3, officials said yesterday. Turkish laws had banned the publication of public opinion surveys three months prior to elections, but Turkey’s elections board ruled that a recent change now allows polls to be published up to a week before the elections, an official at Turkey’s media watchdog said on customary condition of anonymity. Polls can now be published as long as they are presented “objectively and without any comments,” the Hurriyet newspaper quoted Fatih Karaca, the head of the Turkish media watchdog, as saying. (AP)

The international community’s top envoy to Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, has set up a state-level prosecution office to push for judiciary reform and help in the fight against organized crime, a spokesman said yesterday. The Bosnian prosecution office, which should be operational in December, will tackle organized crime, economic crime and corruption, spokesman Oleg Milisic said. (AFP)