PARIS (AP) - France said yesterday that it is “very attentive” to Turkey’s anger over a French bill that would criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide. The comment from France’s Foreign Ministry came as Turkish legislators lobbied their French counterparts to vote down the Armenian genocide bill. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly said that the bill would damage relations between the two countries. “We are very attentive to the Turkish authorities’ reactions on this subject,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau.

BELGRADE (AFP) - Most Serbs hope the citizens of their federal partner Montenegro will vote to keep the union in an independence referendum later this month, a poll showed yesterday. But more than 50 percent of people in Serbia believe that the loose federation shaped from the ruins of former communist Yugoslavia will cease to exist after the May 21 vote. Of 1,488 respondents, a total of 54 percent favored maintaining the union, 36 percent for firmer relations and 18 percent for the current loose federation.

NATO said yesterday it had streamlined its command and control structure in Kosovo to respond faster to ethnic violence as a decision nears on the future of the province. The 17,000-strong force was stung by criticism it responded slowly to riots in March 2004 in which Albanian mobs overran NATO-guarded Serb enclaves, burning homes and churches. A NATO spokesman said that in next five days the Kosovo force (KFOR) would complete the switch from a system of four brigades to the five “task forces” begun in 2005. (Reuters)

Turkey’s ruling party is to sue an 82-year-old who attacked its policies in a message Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan found stuck in the visitors’ book at the home of the state’s founding father, press reports said yesterday. Erdogan ripped out the two-page criticism written by retiree Mehmet Fathi Dorduncu when he found it in the book on a visit to Kemal Ataturk’s home in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. Dordonuc accused Erdogan’s party of “exploiting the religious feelings” of Turks and branded Erdogan a “slave” of the US and the EU. (AFP)

Bulgaria Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev yesterday called on the European Commission to fix the date when Bulgaria and Romania would join the EU, amid reports that the final decision could be delayed to October. The Commission is to issue a key report on May 16 on their readiness for membership. “I think it is important that a firm date for Bulgaria and Romania’s entry be set, because, as I have repeatedly said, this will be an encouraging sign for the efforts made,” Stanishev said. (AP)