BRUSSELS (AFP) - EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana said yesterday that a former ethnic-Albanian rebel leader under investigation for war crimes might not be the “most appropriate” man to lead Kosovo. The investigation by UN war crimes prosecutors at The Hague into Ramush Haradinaj is delaying the formation of a new government after an election in the internationally protected Serbian province last month. “As far as we’re concerned, our no.1 priority is to work on the standards issue,” Solana told reporters in reference to efforts by the EU to build up democracy and civil rights in Kosovo. “Whoever the prime minister, he has to work on the standards issue,” he said as EU foreign ministers met here.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey’s president yesterday approved a key law demanded by the EU removing curbs on freedom of association, but said he would appeal to the Constitutional Court over two of its articles. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had previously vetoed the law, mainly because of an article allowing Turkish associations to receive money from overseas. But under the Constitution, he can only veto laws once and then must seek redress via the courts.

Thousands of ethnic Albanians demonstrated in Kosovo’s capital yesterday to protest the UN war crimes tribunal’s prosecution of three former ethnic-Albanian rebel fighters. More than 10,000 ethnic Albanians braved the cold and flooded a central square in Pristina, carrying Albanian flags and pictures of the former guerrillas. The protest comes a week after former senior rebel commander Fatmir Limaj and two of his subordinates, Haradin Bala and Isak Musliu, went on trial in the UN war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands. (AP)

Accusations and countercharges of corruption flew yesterday in Romania as campaigning intensified a week before elections for a new president and Parliament. “In the absence of concrete programs which would benefit Romanians, the PSD (Social Democrats, currently in power) has launched a dirty campaign aimed at glossing over general corruption,” the opposition Truth and Justice (DA) alliance said. The opposition accused the Social Democrats of violating electoral law ahead of the November 28 vote by “distributing brochures and posters which are defamatory of the opposition.” (AFP)

Bulgaria is reluctant to write off a $1.7 billion (1.3-billion-euro) debt it is owed by Iraq, despite mounting international pressure on Iraq’s creditors to agree to substantial debt reduction, officials said yesterday. “Bulgaria shall continue to seek... payment of Iraq’s debt,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Grancharova told reporters. (AP)