SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s Serbs, Croats and Muslims were to try again yesterday to agree on police reforms in what may be the last chance to start the process of joining the European Union. “The European Union has no Plan B for Bosnia if it fails to pass the police reform. If they do not pass it now, it means that politicians have voted for self-isolation,” said Natasa Vodusek, the ambassador of Slovenia, the EU’s present president. Squabbling among Bosnia’s ethnic groups has blocked adopting the reform law for more than four years while the measures have been debated, drafted and redrafted. The EU has told Bosnia, which was expected to agree on the reforms in March, that the laws had to be passed by parliament yesterday so that it can sign the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) in May. If parliament rejects them, the signature would be postponed indefinitely and there is a chance of a political crisis as Prime Minister Nikola Spiric has threatened to resign.

SOFIA (AFP) – Bulgaria’s parliament yesterday debated a no-confidence motion against the center-left government following allegations of links between the Interior Ministry and organized crime. The motion, the fifth against the government since it took office in 2005, will be put to a vote today but is unlikely to succeed given the coalition’s majority in parliament. “The government has to go as it turned its Interior Ministry into the link connecting power and organized crime,” independent deputy Lachezar Ivanov said yesterday during the debate. There was “collusion between organized crime and the Interior Ministry’s leadership... Key positions at the ministry are entrusted to people who do not uncover crime but cover it up,” he added. Plamen Panayotov from the small right-wing New Democracy party, added: “Prime Minister, how do you expect to carry out reforms in the Interior Ministry? You cannot conduct operation ‘clean hands’ when one of the hands is busy shaking hands with criminals, and the other is pocketing its share of their unlawful business.”

The International Court of Justice at The Hague said yesterday it has scheduled a week of hearings on Zagreb’s complaint that Serbian forces committed genocide in Croatia from 1991-95. The hearings, starting May 26, will focus solely on Serbia’s objections to the court’s jurisdiction and the case’s admissibility. Croatia accuses Serbia of breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention by controlling army soldiers, paramilitary units and intelligence forces who murdered or illegally detained Croats and torched homes to ethnically cleanse large areas of Croatia. (AP)

Turkish troops have killed 13 Kurdish rebels in clashes in eastern Turkey, the military said yesterday. Eleven rebels died near the town of Nazimiye in eastern Tunceli province, and the two others near the town of Hani in Diyarbakir province, the military said. It did not say when the clashes took place, but anti-rebel operations have been under way in the region since the weekend. (AP)