COLORADO SPRINGS (AP) - After eight years in Bosnia, the United States and its NATO allies believe the end is in sight for a peacekeeping mission that has largely achieved its goal but is still tying down hundreds of US soldiers, the American ambassador to NATO said. Ambassador Nicholas Burns said that while final decisions are probably months away, talks here among NATO defense ministers produced a feeling that the time is approaching for the alliance to leave Bosnia. “I think we took a small step forward today in recognizing the strength of what NATO has done and the feeling in the room (was) that we’ve probably reached the stage where we can see an end to the NATO mission,” he said in an interview Thursday with a small group of reporters. Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary-general, told a news conference that it might be 12 to 18 months before the alliance handed over the security mission in Bosnia to the EU or another entity.

DIYARBAKIR (AFP) - A Turkish court yesterday began hearing a controversial case brought against 405 soldiers for the alleged torture and repeated rape of a Kurdish woman on the several occasions she was held in custody. The woman, who is 31 and known only as S.E., said she was blindfolded when she was tortured and raped, leading the prosecution to charge all the soldiers who served during that period in two paramilitary stations in Mardin province where she claims she was abused. The court in Mardin city adjourned the hearing to November 5 on procedural grounds, a lawyer for the plaintiff, Reyhan Yalcindag, told AFP. Neither the plaintiff nor the defendants were present at yesterday’s hearing.

Montenegro’s prime minister said yesterday he has brought a lawsuit against an opposition politician who publicly alleged that he was involved in a prominent sex-trafficking case. Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said he has launched the case against Miodrag Zivkovic, the leader of the opposition Liberal Alliance in a local court and would try to sue him for slander. Zivkovic recently told other lawmakers in Montenegro’s capital, Podogorica, that Djukanovic had “used the services” of a Moldovan woman whose ordeal as an alleged sex slave in several brothels in Montenegro has sparked a major scandal here. (AP)

Croatia said yesterday chances were diminishing for the surrender of an indicted general, the UN war crimes tribunal’s third most wanted fugitive and a major obstacle to Zagreb’s European Union hopes. “The government wishes that General Ante Gotovina would hand himself in but the chances of that are slimmer and slimmer,” Prime Minister Ivica Racan said, without elaborating. (Reuters)