ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party said Saturday that several leading Kurdish politicians had received death threats and urged the authorities to find those responsible, the Anatolia news agency reported. Ahmet Turk, co-chairman of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), said they had received a parcel containing a bullet and pictures of eight activists, including himself, the party’s other co-leader Aysel Tugluk as well as human rights award winner and former member of Parliament Leyla Zana. The judicial authorities should take the statement as a complaint and take legal action to find out who sent the parcel, he said.

BELGRADE (AP) - Montenegro’s pro-independence Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said yesterday he was confident of winning a majority in this year’s vote to split the tiny Balkan republic from Serbia. In an interview aired on private BK Television in Belgrade, Djukanovic — who leads the Montenegrin independence drive — said the independence referendum, set tentatively for this spring, would also determine his political fate. “I fully believe the option to make Montenegro a sovereign state will win 55 percent backing from those who take part in the referendum,” said Djukanovic.

Football violence left some 30 people injured and prompted police to use tear gas and fire shots in the air in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir yesterday, officials and media reports said. Television footage showed spectators dismantling plastic seats and throwing them onto the pitch during a first division match between bottom-of-the-table home team Diyarbakirspor and Konyaspor, currently placed ninth. The unrest continued outside the stadium as fans hurled stones at the police, who retaliated with tear gas and fired warning shots in the air. About 30 people, most of them policemen, were hurt. (AFP)

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari is set to visit Turkey tomorrow to discuss how neighbors can help in stemming the tide of sectarian violence in his country, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday. “On Tuesday the Iraqi prime minister will come to visit us,” Erdogan told a party function in Istanbul, the Anatolia news agency reported. He added that Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose Mehdi militia has been accused of involvement in violence against Sunnis, is also scheduled to visit Ankara in the coming days. “In these talks, we will make efforts to calm, to stop the ongoing process (of violence) in Iraq,” Erdogan said. (AFP)