SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday his government would seek to clarify reports Turkey plans to charge admission at the Gallipoli battleground where thousands of Australian soldiers died in WWI. In southeastern Turkey, Gallipoli, known locally as Gelibolu, is visited each year by thousands of Australians and New Zealanders on April 25, Anzac Day, which marks the bloody landing in 1915 of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Sydney’s Daily Telegraph said Turkey’s Parliament had passed a law authorizing the admission fee, which was confirmed by the national park’s regional head Ayhan Can.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said the US administration should keep US troops in Bosnia until war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are captured. It would be a mistake to withdraw the remaining 1,200 troops and turn over peacekeeping operations in the Balkans country to a European security force, Holbrooke said in a speech on Thursday at the American Academy of Diplomacy. “The risks of leaving Bosnia in the hands of the Europeans are just too great,” Holbrooke said.

Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer late on Thursday voiced support for plans to include Serbia-Montenegro in NATO’s “partnership for peace” program, saying the country’s participation would help bring stability to the Balkans. Sezer’s comments came during a visit by Serbia-Montenegro’s president, Svetozar Marovic, who is in Turkey for two days of talks aimed at strengthening economic and political ties. (AP)

Former Bosnian-Serb president and convicted war criminal Biljana Plavsic, who is serving an 11-year sentence in Sweden, has been transferred to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague to testify, Swedish officials said on Thursday. The Swedish Prison and Probation Service’s chief of security, Christer Isaksson, was tight-lipped about the details of Plavsic’s transfer “for security reasons” and would not disclose why exactly she was called to testify. (AFP)

The Romanian Orthodox Church has banned its priests from joining any political party or running for political office, a top cleric said yesterday. The Holy Synod, which decrees church rules, decided this week that Orthodox priests would no longer be allowed to be members of any political party or work in local administration, said Archbishop Bartolomeu Valeriu Anania of Vad, Feleac and Cluj by telephone. “A priest can express his political view through his vote, which is his constitutional right,” said Bartolomeu. (AP)