ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of having double standards on Turkey’s troubled bid to join the EU, the Anatolia news agency reported. “Mr Sarkozy says one thing in our bilateral meetings and says something else behind our back. This is not a becoming attitude in politics,” Erdogan was quoted as saying in an address to a gathering of businessmen here. Erdogan’s comments came two days after EU foreign ministers issued a statement in Brussels which Ankara said failed to openly confirm its full membership objective. The wording of the text was the result of objections by France. “We are a country that is currently negotiating with the EU,” Erdogan said. “One cannot change the rules during a game of football,” he added.

THE HAGUE (AP) – Departing prosecutor Carla Del Ponte appealed yesterday for the UN’s Yugoslav tribunal to keep its doors open until its chief fugitives are arrested and put on trial. Those most wanted are former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief, General Ratko Mladic. “I hope and I believe that the Security Council will make the right decision and not close this tribunal before those two are brought to justice,” Del Ponte said in her final news conference at the tribunal. Del Ponte, a Swiss lawyer who will become her country’s ambassador to Argentina, has been the chief prosecutor for eight years. The Security Council is pressing the court to shut down by 2010.

A Bosnian Serb general who ordered the relentless shelling, sniping and indiscriminate terror that rained down on Sarajevo during the final phase of a 44-month siege was convicted of war crimes on Wednesday and given a 33-year prison sentence. Citing testimony from survivors of snipers’ bullets and makeshift missiles, the UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted General Dragomir Milosevic, 65, of murder, inhumane acts and waging a campaign of terror for orchestrating the last 15 months of the 1992-1995 barrage of the Bosnian capital. “There was no safe place in Sarajevo,” said presiding Judge Patrick Robinson, reading from the judgment. “One could be killed and injured anywhere and anytime.” (AP)

Albania has offered to donate its surplus ammunition to Afghanistan and Iraq to help the war-torn countries restructure their armed forces, the defense minister said on Wednesday. “We asked Washington and other NATO member countries to consider this offer,” Fatmir Mediu said. With support from several NATO member countries, Albania has so far destroyed at least 46,000 tons of surplus ammunition in a program set to last until 2010. “A part of the excess ammunition can be efficiently used by Iraqi or Afghan armed forces, two countries which are trying to restructure their armed forced in order to guarantee peace and stability there,” Mediu said. (AFP)

Croatian police have arrested 22 people, including three lawyers and seven civil servants, accused of taking bribes in the capital’s land registry office, police said on Wednesday. Cracking down on corruption in public service and the judiciary is one of Zagreb’s priorities in order to advance its European Union membership talks and join the bloc around 2010. (Reuters)