WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States on Thursday warned US citizens of possibly violent anti-American protests in Turkey around the upcoming June 27-29 summit of NATO leaders in Istanbul. “There is potential for large-scale public gatherings, tight security that may hamper free movement and possible large-scale anti-American protests in highly visited sections of Istanbul in late June 2004, in the days leading up to and in conjunction with this event,” the State Department said. “Americans traveling in Istanbul should avoid the area of the NATO summit,” it said.

SARAJEVO (AP) - NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer yesterday told Bosnia’s leaders that the country’s chances of joining the military alliance anytime soon are “close to zero.” De Hoop Scheffer met with Bosnia’s three-member presidency and leaders of Parliament to discuss Bosnia’s aspiration to joint NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program, a first step toward eventual membership. After the meeting, de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference that his visit “comes in a very important moment,” as Bosnia is “at a very critical junction.” NATO had said it might ask Bosnia to join its Partnership for Peace Program at a NATO summit to be held next month in Istanbul but only if by then it fulfills all the requirements set by the alliance.

A radical Islamist preacher who disappeared after a German court ruled he could be extradited to face treason charges in Turkey is in Cologne and will report to police next week, his lawyer said yesterday. A court decided on Wednesday that Metin Kaplan, the head of a militant Islamist group in the western city of Cologne, could be extradited to face treason charges in Turkey, overturning rulings that he faced the threat of torture in his home country. Police went to his flat with an arrest warrant on Wednesday only to find he had gone, prompting charges they had failed to coordinate surveillance with intelligence services. (Reuters)

Police in southeastern Turkey have seized some 100 guns and thousands of bullets hidden in three trucks carrying wheat from neighboring Iraq, local officials said yesterday. The cache included 114 guns, among them three Uzi submachine guns, 120 chargers and about 7,000 bullets, most of them for Kalashnikov rifles, said the governor of Sanliurfa province, Sukru Kocatepe, according to the Anatolia news agency. The Turkish drivers of the trucks were detained. (AFP)