ANKARA (AFP) – A radical Kurdish group threatened fresh attacks in Turkey, including against tourist targets, following Turkish air raids on rebel positions in Iraq, in a statement on its website yesterday. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a shadowy group that has claimed responsibility for deadly bomb attacks in the past, threatened “days of apocalypse for Turkey... with (our) activists who have taken a vow of revenge.” The targets will include tourist centers, economic facilities, the security forces and Kurdish “collaborators,” it said. Turkish officials say TAK is a front for PKK attacks on civilian targets, while the PKK maintains that it is a splinter group over which it has no control.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey will never abandon its Western orientation, a senior Turkish official said yesterday, despite plans to ease a ban on the Muslim headscarf that some Turks fear augurs a slide toward an Islamic order. “Turkey cannot turn back from the point we have reached in regard to civilization, modernization and Westernization,” Parliament Speaker Koksal Toptan, the second-ranking official in Turkey’s state hierarchy, told Reuters in an interview. “...Turkey cannot give up on its target of membership of the European Union,” he said.

Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac warned Zagreb yesterday against hastily recognizing Kosovo’s independence, saying it could prompt his party to leave the coalition government. “Croatia should wait, look into all the circumstances evolving around the Kosovo status,” Pupovac, vice president of the Independent Serb Democratic Party (SDSS), told the Slobodna Dalmacija daily. (AFP)

The defense ministers of Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Albania were seeking help from the United States on Tuesday for their bids to join NATO. Branko Vukelic of Croatia, Lazar Elenovski of FYROM and Fatmir Mediu of Albania were detailing their countries’ efforts to meet requirements for change ahead of the alliance’s April summit in Bucharest. That is where the members will consider the three bids. (AP)

Montenegro’s president appointed Milo Djukanovic, the architect of the tiny republic’s independence, as prime minister yesterday after the former premier quit for health reasons. “Djukanovic has already performed duties of the prime minister and president during the most difficult times of the modern history of Montenegro,” President Filip Vujanovic said explaining his decision. (AP)