BELGRADE (AFP) - A Serbian munitions dump was rocked by a series of strong blasts yesterday, injuring at least 20 civilians and forcing the closure of a highway linking Western Europe with Greece and Turkey. The explosions began shortly after 4.30 a.m. (local time) at military barracks near the town of Paracin, about 95 miles southeast of the capital Belgrade, local media reports said. They set off around 3,500 tons of “standard explosives” stored at a warehouse in the complex, on a hill just over a mile from the town of about 65,000 residents, said Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic. Soldiers escaped injury, but 23 civilians suffered cuts when the blasts shattered the windows of their homes, the private Beta news agency reported.

PRISTINA (AFP) - Kosovo’s parliament yesterday denounced as illegal a referendum on Serbia’s new constitution, which declares the UN-run province to be an integral part of Serbia. “The assembly condemns assigning Kosovo in the preamble of the new Serbian constitution as well as conducting the referendum on it on the territory of Kosovo,” it said in a declaration, adding such a move was considered “constitutional aggression.”

The UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, said yesterday it had signed a free trade pact with Bosnia on behalf of Kosovo, the province’s fourth such deal within the Balkan region. The agreement was concluded by the UN mission following similar deals reached with Albania, Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Trade between the two sides would be fully liberalized from December. (AFP)

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said in a report yesterday that 2009 was a “realistic” date for the country’s accession to the European Union. “I think it is realistic to speak about 2009 as the accession year,” Sanader told the daily Vjesnik in an interview. (AFP)

The first batch of 261 Turkish military engineers set sail for Lebanon yesterday to join the enlarged UN peacekeeping operation policing a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the general staff said. NATO member Turkey was the first Muslim country to contribute troops to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). (AFP)