PRISTINA (AFP) - The Serbian Orthodox Church said yesterday that it had turned down a request by Kosovo’s Albanian prime minister to attend its Easter service this weekend. Agim Ceku, the recently appointed prime minister of Kosovo, whom Serbia accuses of war crimes, had his request to attend the liturgy rejected by Bishop Artemije, the head of the Church in the disputed province. Artemije said Ceku’s attendance was refused because “many Orthodox churches were burned down in the March 2004 riots” by Kosovo Albanians, including the Church leader’s residence in the southern town of Prizren. “We relayed that we are not able to admit Ceku before I return to the residency and my worshippers can come home,” Artemije said, referring to minority Serbs expelled during the rioting.

ANKARA (AP) - The foreign ministers of Iran’s neighbors, Turkey and Pakistan, said yesterday that diplomacy must be given a chance to solve the nuclear crisis over Iran. “Pakistan is against the use of force,” the country’s Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri told a news conference. “We do not wish to have an unstable border with Iran... We prefer that diplomacy be given a chance.” Gul said that “nobody wants war and especially not Turkey... Everyone must work for a solution through diplomatic channels.”

Bosnia and Croatia have normalized postwar relations, and there is no longer a need for the special council established nine years ago to help bilateral cooperation, their leaders said yesterday in Sarajevo. The Bosnia-Croatia Interstate Council — set up after the 1992-95 Bosnian war that followed Yugoslavia’s breakup — will be disbanded, said Sulejman Tihic, chairman of Bosnia’s three-member presidency, after attending the council’s 10th meeting along with Croatian President Stipe Mesic. “Relations have improved to the point of us not requiring such an institution in its present form,” Tihic said. (AP)

An ultra-nationalist party that ruled with Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s would win Serbia’s parliamentary election if it were held now, according to a poll released yesterday. The Serbian Radical Party would get 38 percent of the vote, the independent CeSID polling firm said. The pro-Western Democratic Party would come in second with 28 percent. The Socialist Party of Serbia, which was headed by the late Milosevic, would collect 7.6 percent — allowing it to form a government with the ultra-nationalists. (AP)