VIENNA (AP) - Ethnic Albanian and Serbian officials met for the fifth time in Vienna yesterday to discuss the protection and survival of Kosovo’s cultural and religious sites, particularly in parts of the province dominated by ethnic Albanians. The talks also focused on the legal status of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s dioceses in the province. “We want religious autonomy for Kosovo Serbs and special ties of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s (dioceses) with Belgrade,” said Leon Kojen, a Serb negotiator, ahead of the talks. Serbs consider Kosovo to be the cradle of their civilization, and key Serbian religious and historical sites are located there — and are currently being guarded by NATO peacekeepers. Ylber Hysa, who leads the ethnic Albanian delegation to the Vienna talks, pledged a “partnership approach.” “We want to see churches and all historical sites protected,” he said.

PARIS (Reuters) - The French government yesterday approved a draft law ratifying the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union, almost a year after voters threw enlargement into question by rejecting an EU constitution. The bill was presented at the weekly government meeting by Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. All 25 member states must ratify the accession treaty signed on April 25, 2005. The European Commission last week postponed by five months — until October — a final recommendation on whether Romania and Bulgaria are fit to join the 25-nation bloc next year or whether one or both of the Balkan states should wait an extra year.

Suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a small bomb at a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran early yesterday, causing a gas leakage, the Anatolia news agency reported. The pipeline was attacked near the town of Dogubayazit near the border with Iran, at around 3 a.m. (0000 GMT), the agency said. Security forces cordoned off the area and authorities from Turkey’s state-run pipeline company Botas were working to repair the damage, the agency said. (AP)

Veteran politician Bulent Ecevit, a five-time prime minister of Turkey, remains in a coma four days after suffering a brain hemorrhage, with no improvement in his condition, hospital staff said yesterday. Doctors who examined Ecevit yesterday morning, 28 hours after they stopped giving him medicine to keep him in an artificial coma, determined “that the anticipated changes have not occurred, that his condition remains serious and he is in a coma,” a statement from the elite GATA military hospital said. He remains on life support, with his respiratory and circulatory functions stable, it said. The center-left secularist politician, who retired three-and-a-half years ago leaving behind a reputation of honesty in Turkey’s corruption-riddled politics, is five days short of his 81st birthday. (AFP)