ANKARA (AFP) - Former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan resigned from his Islamist party yesterday following his conviction for embezzling the funds of a party he used to lead. In December, an appeals court upheld a two-year-and-four-month prison term against Erbakan for falsifying documents in the high-profile fraud case involving the outlawed Welfare Party. The court also ordered that the 78-year-old Erbakan be expelled from the Felicity Party (SP), which was founded after Welfare was outlawed.

ISTANBUL (AP) - Turkish police have detained a suspected top leader of a Turkish Al Qaeda-linked cell believed to have carried out November suicide bombings in Istanbul that killed 62 people, an official said yesterday. Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said police were questioning the suspect, who was detained Thursday in Istanbul. Guler said the man, who was not identified, was “an important name among the planners of the Istanbul attacks” and a leader in a Turkish group that authorities have linked to Al Qaeda.

The Bosnian-Serb government has decided to destroy its arsenal of 4,000 surface-to-air missiles after the United States expressed concern they could be used for terrorist attacks. “The Republika Srpska’s government gave the green light to the Defense Ministry to destroy our stockpiles of obsolete surface-to-air missiles,” Branko Trkulja, the Defense Ministry spokesman, told AFP. (AFP)

The government in the Serb-run part of Bosnia yesterday declared the Muslim feast of Eid Al Adha an official holiday for the entity’s Muslims, in its first such move ever. “The Republika Srpska’s government proclaimed February 2 a holiday for Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslims),” government spokeswoman Cvijeta Kovacevic told AFP. Eid Al Adha, which starts tomorrow, marks the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. (AFP)

Britain has appointed a new consul-general in Istanbul, Turkey, to replace Roger Short, the envoy who was killed in a suicide bombing there. Barbara Hay, 51, currently the consul-general in St Petersburg, Russia, will assume her post in Istanbul shortly, Britain’s Foreign Office said yesterday. (AP)

Croatia has banned poultry imports from five Asian countries affected by a deadly bird flu virus, the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday. The ban concerns imports of poultry and its products from China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, it said in a statement. (AFP)