ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Turks in Germany yesterday to reject assimilation, repeating comments that drew a furious response in the German city of Cologne on the weekend. “I repeat... assimilation is a crime against humanity,” Erdogan said in a speech to parliament in Ankara. “I explained over there (Germany) that they must differentiate very clearly between assimilation and integration. We can think differently from (Chancellor) Merkel about this, but that is my opinion,” Erdogan said. During a visit on Sunday to the Turkish community in Cologne, Erdogan warned Turks against assimilation and encouraged them to safeguard their own culture. Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted furiously to this speech, saying that Germans of Turkish origin owed their primary loyalty to the German state.

ANKARA (AFP) – Israel will take further military measures to respond to attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza, Israel’s defense minister said yesterday. “We will be forced to strengthen our military efforts,” Ehud Barak said during a meeting with Turkish counterpart Vecdi Gonul. Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government has long offered to help mediate peace between Israel and Palestinians. Asked to comment on the reported Turkish mediation, Barak said “These are not issues that we are talking about in detail and, for sure, we will not report on them.”

An editor of one of Croatia’s main newspapers offered to resign yesterday after publishing an interview with Prime Minister Ivo Sanader that turned out to be fake. “Regardless of all the circumstances that led to this negligence, I have offered to resign as the editor of the Europa Press Holding” media group which owns the daily Jutarnji List, said Davor Butkovic. (AFP)

The trial of two Serbian former security chiefs linked to the Srebrenica massacre and accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity will start next month, the UN court announced yesterday. Jovica Stanisic, 57, and Franko “Franki” Simatovic, also 57, will go on trial from March 10 at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Both men, who ran the Serbian security services under late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, have pleaded not guilty. (AFP)