PODGORICA (AP) - Montenegro's pro-independence prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, will seek support from the EU for his plans to fully separate his tiny republic from Serbia, officials said yesterday. Djukanovic will travel to Brussels next week and meet there with EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, said sources close to the Montenegrin government leader. Djukanovic made an official proposal earlier this week that the two Balkan republics dissolve their already loose alliance, forged in 2003 under EU auspices. He received a resounding «no» from Serbia.

DUBLIN (AFP) - Irish Justice Ministry officials are to meet with a senior Bulgarian delegation in a bid to unravel suspected Irish Republican Army money laundering in the Eastern European country, a spokeswoman said yesterday. One of a series of IRA money-laundering raids by Irish police last week resulted in the seizure of 2.3 million pounds ($4.4 million, 3.3 million euros) from a house near Cork city in the south of the country. A financier who was questioned under anti-terrorist laws following the raid had recently visited Sofia.

Koray Aydin, a former right-wing minister of housing and public works, appeared yesterday before Turkey's Supreme Court on charges of mismanagement, corruption and abuse of power. Aydin is accused of contravening the rules of state tenders and personally enriching himself as he hand-picked builders close to his Nationalist Action Party (MHP) for reconstruction work after two earthquakes that claimed more than 20,000 lives in northwestern Turkey in 1999. (AFP)

Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, on a visit to Kosovo yesterday, said basic standards of democracy and human rights should be met before the UN-run province's future status could be discussed. «It is clear to everyone that the decision on the future status will be taken after a review of reforms which aim at a multiethnic Kosovo, and the improvement of the rights of minorities in particular,» Fini said after meeting with Kosovo leaders. (AFP)

Bulgaria is to send 30 extra troops to Afghanistan in February to operate as part of the NATO-led international security assistance force (ISAF), the Bulgarian Parliament decided yesterday. Bulgaria, which joined NATO in April 2004, currently has 49 military troops and 17 instructors in Kabul and expects to take charge of security at the Kabul airport between June and September 2006. (AFP)