ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey, an increasingly important oil and gas corridor, wants to be able to trade some of the energy piped across its territory from the Caspian to Europe, Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said yesterday. Last month Turkey inaugurated a $3.9 billion, BP-led oil link from Azerbaijan’s Baku to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Turkey now hopes a key $5.8 billion Nabucco natural gas pipeline project will enable Ankara to become an energy trader. “Our current government policy is to make Turkey a country of trade rather than a transit country. This is a very important change,” Guler said in an interview. Traditionally, transit countries have charged a flat rate for oil and gas piped beneath their soil.

TIRANA (AP) - Albanian police destroyed more than 1,700 marijuana plants in a southern village yesterday, authorities said. Police said they found the plants in abandoned houses in the village of Lazarat, 230 kilometers (140 miles) south of Tirana and about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the checkpoint of Kakavia, on the border with Greece. No arrests had been made. The international community has told Albania it must curb trafficking to join the EU and NATO.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said yesterday that the establishment of closer ties between his country and NATO could make it easier to bring fugitive war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic to justice. Draskovic said that by establishing closer ties with NATO, “those protecting Mladic will concede that they have lost their battle” to isolate Serbia from the rest of the world. The comments came after a meeting between Draskovic and Slovakian Foreign Minister Jan Kubis, who pledged to push for Serbian membership in NATO’s outreach Partnership for Peace program. (AP)

Some 500 travelers have been stranded in Turkey after a charter airline company canceled flights to Paris over a dispute with a travel agency, French officials said yesterday. The passengers, mostly French tourists and Turks living in France, were stuck at airports in Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya and Kayseri, when the airline company, Atlas Jet, canceled flights to Paris on Sunday and yesterday, a French consular official in Turkey said. The flights were canceled after the Elegance travel agency failed to make payments despite numerous warnings, Atlas Jet spokesman Tunay Erden said. (AP)