ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey’s powerful military, which for years has viewed several neighboring states as dangerous enemies, said yesterday that terrorism rather than individual countries was now the biggest threat. “Turkey no longer considers... countries as threats to each other,” Chief of Staff General Hilmi Ozkok told members of the 10-nation Southeastern Europe Defense Ministerial (SEDM) grouping late on Thursday. “For the moment, the biggest threat for all countries is terrorism,” he said in a speech published on the General Staff website.

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday renewed an offer for Ankara’s mediation to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as he returned from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s funeral in Cairo. “Turkey is ready to be a mediator in the peace process at any time and will continue to work on this issue as it always has,” Erdogan told reporters at Ankara Airport. Turkey has been an ally of Israel since the two sides signed a military cooperation agreement in 1996, but it also enjoys close ties with the Palestinians.

The number of people known to have died when a boat carrying illegal immigrants sank off Turkey’s western coast rose to 11 when the coast guard found two more bodies, a local official said yesterday. The bodies were recovered Thursday and yesterday in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Seferihisar, in Izmir province, where the boat is believed to have sunk in bad weather late Tuesday, sub-governor Mahmet Godekmerdan told the Anatolia news agency. (AFP)

One person was killed and another injured yesterday when a train crashed into a fuel truck at a level crossing in an Istanbul suburb, Turkish television station NTV reported. NTV said two carriages of the train had left the tracks. No further details were immediately available. (Reuters)

The court trying the alleged assassins of former Serb Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said yesterday that it would call some of his closest associates to testify. The three-judge panel announced it would summon Djindjic’s key aide Cedomir Jovanovic, former Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, former security adviser Zoran Janjusevic as well as other officials and secret service officers. Djindjic, Serbia’s first pro-Western premier since World War II, was gunned down on March 12, 2003, in downtown Belgrade allegedly by mobsters and paramilitaries loyal to former President Slobodan Milosevic. (AP)