ANKARA (AP) - German Defense Minister Peter Struck yesterday arrived in Ankara for bilateral talks between the two NATO allies. Struck met with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and said that the two countries had good relations and were cooperating in Afghanistan. Struck denied that the purpose of his visit was the possible sale of German tanks to Turkey. “I definitely did not come here to sell tanks. The important thing is that Turkey and the Turkish military have a modern armed force,” Turkey’s Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying. Struck was scheduled to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Vecdi Gonul, today. Turkish officials have indicated that Turkey is considering the purchase of Leopard tanks from Germany.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A Bosnian Serb convicted of aiding and abetting genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II, will serve his jail term in the United Kingdom, the Hague tribunal said yesterday. General Radislav Krstic had his jail sentence cut to 35 years from 46 years by appeal court judges at the war crimes tribunal in April when they reduced his 2001 genocide conviction to one of aiding and abetting the crime. More than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered after Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia fell to Serb forces in July 1995.

The presidents of Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) are set to discuss bilateral relations and joint efforts toward integration into the European Union and NATO, Albanian President Alfred Moisiu’s office said yesterday. Moisiu and his FYROM counterpart, Branko Crvenkovski, are due to meet today in the eastern Albanian town of Pogradec, 140 kilometers (84 miles) east of the capital, Tirana, Moisiu spokeswoman Aferdita Sokoli said. (AP)

The head of Serbia’s Orthodox Church was quoted as saying yesterday that Pope John Paul II is not welcome in the country. Serbia-Montenegro’s President Svetozar Marovic said last month he is preparing an invitation for the pope to visit the Balkan country. But Belgrade newspaper Blic quoted Patriarch Pavle as saying, “It is not the time for the pope’s visit... at this time he would not be a welcome visitor.” The pontiff has visited nearly all the countries that border Serbia-Montenegro. In Serbia, he had often been branded by nationalists as an enemy of Christian Orthodox Serbs. (AP)