ISTANBUL (AP) - Police in Istanbul yesterday detained 139 illegal immigrants who were trying to sneak into Western Europe through Turkey, news reports said. Police discovered 98 migrants from Pakistan and India hiding in a basement. In a separate operation, they detained 41 migrants from Libya and Somalia found in the back of a truck, the Anatolia news agency reported. The migrants, who had entered Turkey illegally, intended to cross into Western Europe.

GENEVA (AFP) - Turkish intelligence services spied on Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey because of her alleged links with Turkey’s restless Kurdish minority, Swiss newspapers reported yesterday. This was why the minister canceled a planned trip to Anakara last month, they said. The newspaper Le Matin said Turkish intelligence had informed Swiss police of the alleged links. It quoted a Turkish memo saying: “If your foreign minister is persona non grata in Ankara it is because she lends too attentive an ear to Kurdish opponents.”

More than 30,000 pro-secular university professors and students on Saturday protested plans by the Islamic-rooted government that they say could limit non-religious state control over education. The government has drafted a proposal to limit the powers of the Higher Education Board, which was established to ensure strong state influence over education. The pro-secular board keep tabs on universities, scrutinizes academic studies, and oversees the appointment of professors to key posts. The board says the government proposals would weaken its powers and could enable radical Islam to gain ground in universities. (AP)

Fifteen demonstrators were arrested in Istanbul on Saturday when they protested against possible deployment of Turkish troops in neighboring Iraq, Anatolia news agency reported. Police prevented the activists, including supporters of the illegal Turkish Marxist-Leninist communist party, from unfurling banners protesting at a vote by Parliament endorsing the controversial deployment, which is opposed by wide sections of the public. (AFP)

Bulgaria has asked its diplomatic staff to leave Baghdad and move to Amman, the capital of neighboring Jordan, a Foreign Ministry official said on Saturday. “The current priorities of our diplomatic mission in Baghdad suggest that our representatives had to be moved to Amman,” Victoria Melamed, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Sofia, told The Associated Press. The ministry refused to say why Charge d’Affaires Svilen Bozhanov and his aide left Iraq, and Bozhanov could not be reached by telephone for comment. (AP)