ANKARA (AFP) - Turkish authorities have postponed an election re-run in the southeastern province of Siirt by a month to March 9, the official gazette announced yesterday. The head of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK), Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was legally barred from standing in the November 3 general elections, has been expected to stand for Parliament in the Siirt re-run, which would open the way for him to become prime minister. The decision of the Higher Electoral Board follows recent amendments to laws regulating electoral procedures.

BELGRADE (Combined reports) - Former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic will go to the UN war crimes court to face charges over the Kosovo conflict, but the exact timing of the move is not yet clear, Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said yesterday. “Milutinovic will face the tribunal. He is in contact with the court in The Hague,” Djindjic said. “It will happen in a week, maybe a few days.” Meantime, it was reported that the Yugoslav government has appealed to the UN tribunal to allow Milutinovic to remain free pending trial. (Reuters, AFP)

Kurdish separatist rebels have warned Turkey they will start a civil disobedience campaign if the jail conditions of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, are not improved by mid-February, a pro-Kurdish newspaper reported yesterday. “(Ocalan’s) isolation is directly related to Turkey’s willingness or unwillingness to resolve the Kurdish problem,” Mustafa Karasu of KADEK said in a report on the Ozgur Politika newspaper’s website. (AFP)

Croatia’s former army chief Gen. Janko Bobetko, who has been indicted for war crimes by the UN court, will allow its medical experts to examine him and verify local doctors’ claims that he is not fit to stand trial, his attorney said yesterday. “We expect them to confirm that his condition is very grave,” attorney Bosiljko Misetic said. (AP)

Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte vowed yesterday that the UN tribunal in The Hague would not close until it had tried fugitives Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian-Serb wartime leader, and his military commander Ratko Mladic. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) “cannot close its doors before bringing them to justice,” Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger. (AFP)

The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic will be adjourned at least until Friday as the former Yugoslav president has fallen ill with the flu, the UN war crimes court in The Hague said yesterday. (AFP)