TIRANA (AP) - The Albanian prime minister yesterday denounced the Serbian Parliament’s adoption of a controversial resolution that declares Kosovo a permanent part of Serbia. PM Fatos Nano criticized the document at a meeting of the country’s ambassadors, saying it ignored the will of Kosovo’s people. Nano argued that another point in the Serbian document — that Serbs who fled their homes in Kosovo during and after the war should return — was not related to that of Kosovo’s status. “Serbs should return to Kosovo. Kosovo cannot return to Serbia. These are two different issues,” Nano said.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia and Montenegro’s joint parliament cleared a hurdle toward closer ties with the European Union yesterday by approving a plan to align the economies of the two republics in the union. The plan defines steps to harmonize trade regimes and unify economies that are different in size and structure. The two republics have separate currencies and customs rules. “The adoption of the action plan is an important moment in the process of our integration into European institutions,” said the union’s Parliament Speaker Dragoljub Micunovic.

Turkey has renewed its demand for the extradition from Germany of a suspected Turkish extremist leader known as the “Caliph of Cologne” after a German court blocked his deportation, Ankara’s ambassador to Berlin said in a yesterday newspaper interview. Osman Koruturk told the daily Bild that Turkey was puzzled by this week’s ruling, in which a court in the western city of Cologne said Metin Kaplan could not be expelled to Turkey because he could not expect a fair trial there. “No one should have even the smallest doubt that Metin Kaplan will have a fair trial,” Koruturk was quoted as saying. (AFP)

Croatia urged wartime General Ante Gotovina to surrender to the UN war crimes tribunal, with officials saying yesterday that the fugitive was hurting the former Yugoslav republic’s prospects of joining the European Union and NATO. “The Croatian government is publicly calling on General Gotovina to show up before the Hague tribunal because we are convinced that it is the only place where he can prove his innocence,” Prime Minister Ivica Racan said in a letter to the Security Council on Thursday. (AFP)