Balkans

Mr. Dimitrios Kourkoulas, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece will visit Baku on 6-8 March, 2013. He will meet with members of the Government of Azerbaijan, according to the Greek Embassy in Azerbaijan. He will also lead a business delegation which will participate in the Greek-Azerbaijani business forum.

The Hague Tribunal acquitted Yugoslav Army general Momcilo Perisic on appeal, quashing his 27-year prison sentence for war crimes during the 1990s conflict.The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ruled on Thursday that Perisic was not responsible for the wartime crimes committed by the Bosnian …

PM says media reports of supplying weapons to Syrian rebels have compromised safety of troops.Croatia said on Thursday that it was about to withdraw its soldiers stationed on the Golan Heights as part of a UN force, after a US newspaper reported said that Syrian rebels battling the regime of …

Annual celebrations of Bosnian independence day have again proved ethnically divisive and will only be marked in the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity, not by the country’s Serbs.On Friday, March 1, Bosnia and Herzegovina will mark 21 years from the 1992 referendum in which mainly Bosniak and Croat citizens declared their wish …

Brussels wants to know why new local authority HQs in Gracanica and Klokot are months behind schedule.The European Commission is looking at why construction of municipal buildings it funded in two Serbian communities is months overdue amid a legal dispute between the contractor and sub-contractor. “The case does not involve …

International representatives are stepping up pressure for a last-minute compromise to end Macedonia’s political crisis and re-start the stalled EU accession process.In a final attempt to end Macedonia’s politicial crisis, the European Parliament rapporteur on Macedonia, Richard Howitt, is due to arrive in Skopje on Thursday. He already visited the …

A group of NGOs on Wednesday warned that Albania’s institutions are failing to notify voters of their presence on preliminary electoral rolls ahead of the June parliamentary elections.“The government is blatantly omitting its legal obligation to inform voters of their presence of the electoral lists and the voting booth where …

The latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, a think tank, entitled “Bosnia’s Dangerous Tango: Islam and Nationalism”, warns of the danger of a fusion between Bosniak nationalism and Islam. “Political Islam is a novelty in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and its rise is seen as threatening to secular parties …

The EU Enlargement Commissioner said Bosnia needs to meet its obligations under the EU road map, especially in connection with the Sejdic-Finci ruling. Stefano Sannino, European Commissioner for Enlargement, told Nermin Niksic, the Prime Minister of Bosnia’s Federation entity, that Brussels supports Bosnia’s further EU progress. The two officials discussed Bosnia’s …

Bulgaria’s parliament on Wednesday confirmed a decision to abandon the Belene nuclear power plant project.The vote in parliament was prompted by a recent referendum on the construction of a new nuclear power plant, which put the Belene project back on parliament’s agenda, as the voter turnout exceeded 20 per cent. …