DIYARBAKIR (AFP) - Two Turkish policemen have been killed in an armed attack and four other people injured in a land mine explosion in Turkey’s restive mainly Kurdish southeast, officials said yesterday. The two officers, both aged 31, entered crossfire while they were walking in the street in the town of Idil, Sirnak province, late Monday, the local governor said in a statement.

PRISTINA (AFP) - Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said yesterday that he would ask the UN Security Council to support independence for the southern Serbian province, administered by the UN. “I will ask the Security Council to support the process achieved so far in Kosovo.... At the same time, I will ask for support for Kosovo independence,” Sejdiu told reporters in the provincial capital Pristina.

The United States called on Serbian authorities yesterday to speed up investigation into the execution of three US citizens of ethnic Albanian origin whose bodies were found in a mass grave in Serbia five years ago. On the seventh anniversary of their murder, US Ambassador in Belgrade Michael Polt urged the authorities “to rapidly complete their investigation” into the killings of the three Bytyqi brothers and indict the perpetrators, the embassy said in a statement delivered to AFP. (AFP)

The Albanian opposition called on its supporters to join a protest here yesterday against the center-right government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha, after accusations that it was trying to put under control all independent institutions. “The demonstration will be a people’s referendum against the government of Sali Berisha to show him the real force of the opposition,” said Ilir Meta, leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration. (AFP)

Bosnia’s war crimes court sentenced a former Bosnian-Serb policeman to five years in prison yesterday for crimes against humanity committed in 1992 in the eastern town of Visegrad. The court found Boban Simsic, 38, guilty of crimes including involvement in the abduction and rape of Muslims in Visegrad, scene of some of the most gruesome atrocities in the Bosnian war, which claimed more than 100,000 lives. (Reuters)

Croatia plans to tie a giant knot in red thread around its 4,000 kilometers (2,480 miles) of borders to promote the country’s cultural heritage and identity, organizers said yesterday. The project “Tie Around Croatia” was officially launched in the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik, where it will also conclude with a ceremonial tying of “the smallest knot of the biggest tie,” they said. The main idea of the artistic installation is to link all Croatian diverse regions into a symbolic whole. (AFP)