ANKARA (AFP) - Three Turkish tourists kidnapped in southeast Iran in December have been freed, Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullah Gul said yesterday. Gul thanked the Iranian government for its help in securing the release of three amateur paragliders, abducted December 24 in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, the Anatolia news agency said. The three men were to arrive at the Turkish Embassy in Tehran yesterday evening before returning home today.

ANKARA (AP) - The Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II offered in 2000 to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and planned to kill the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, a Turkish newspaper reported yesterday, printing what it said were letters written by the gunman. The Hurriyet newspaper printed handwritten letters purportedly penned by Mehmet Ali Agca. In one letter, dated Sept. 1, 2000 and addressed to the head of the Turkish intelligence agency, Agca asked for release from prison to travel to Afghanistan, infiltrate bin Laden’s terror network and capture him “dead or alive.”

Police yesterday issued an arrest warrant against Serb businessman Sreten Karic after he failed to appear voluntarily for questioning. Karic, former director-general of the Balkan republic’s chief wireless carrier Mobtel, is accused of fraud and tax evasion. The warrant is part of a crackdown against the Karic clan, one of Serbia’s richest families and founders of a growing political party, Strength of Serbia. (AP)

European peacekeepers in Bosnia yesterday found a large cache of illegal weapons left over from the country’s 1992-1995 war, a spokesman said. “We found two sets of 120mm mortars and some 3 tons of ammunition,” James Gater, spokesman for the EU peackepeeking force, told AFP. The cache was found in the town of Kozarska Dubicaa after a tip-off. (AFP)

Prosecutors in the war crimes case of Slobodan Milosevic have asked the court to order the former Yugoslav president’s trial to go on if he is again absent from court due to ill health, documents released yesterday showed. The prosecution demanded “the trial chamber order that assigned counsel be ready to take over the accused’s in-court role in the event of his involuntary absence on grounds of ill health,” the motion said. (AFP)