TUNCELI (Reuters) - Syria has turned over a senior Kurdish militant and six other rebels to Turkey in a sign of closer security cooperation between the former foes, a Turkish security official said yesterday. Separately, fighting in southeastern Turkey killed three soldiers and four Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels late on Thursday, the military General Staff in Ankara said. Syrian police detained the PKK’s Hamili Yildirim, who has evaded capture since 1996, and the others in July as they tried to cross into Turkey from Syria, police said.

ANKARA (AFP) - Torture at the hands of security forces continues to be widespread and systematic in Turkey despite government efforts to eradicate the practice, Turkey’s leading human rights organization said yesterday. “Torture is widespread and systematic,” said the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) in a statement which also said it had received 692 complaints of torture in the first half of this year, compared to 1,391 cases for the whole of 2003. Although they are becoming rarer, traditional methods such as falanga — beating the soles of the feet with a stick — and electrical shocks are still widespread, said the statement from the IHD’s director Husnu Ondul.

The remains of over 100 people have been exhumed from a mass grave in northwestern Bosnia, an official said yesterday. “So far, we have exhumed 110 bodies,” Commission for Missing People member Jasmin Odobasic said. Exhumations at the grave near Prijedor, in the region of Krajina, started over three weeks ago. Odobasic said documents found with the bodies indicated the victims had been inmates of the notorious Serb-run Omarska prison camp during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. (AFP)

The UN war crimes court in The Hague has agreed to receive an appeal against the appointment of a defense lawyer for the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, the court said in a statement yesterday. Milosevic has refused to cooperate with the court-appointed counsel, imposed on him because of his failing health, and claims that he is being denied the right to defend himself. (AFP)

Enforcing Montenegro’s recently adopted anti-smoking regulations, health inspectors demanded yesterday that state-run television be fined for airing interviews in which participants were shown smoking. “The state television must not have such scenes in its program because it effectively advertises smoking,” health inspector Kemal Grbovic said, saying that a local court should fine the broadcaster up to 15,000 euros (US$18,500) under the new anti-smoking law. (AP)