Balkans

In one-time gesture of goodwill, Turkey cancels planned military shooting drills in Mediterranean, say security sources. ANKARA Turkey and Greece have mutually cancelled military drills set earlier this month by Ankara for this Wednesday, Oct. 28 and by Athens for Thursday, Oct. 29, according to Turkish security sources.

In light of the conflict in the eastern Mediterranean between Turkey and Greece, Russia may be looking to strengthen its ties with Greece in order to further its interests in the region.

Russian Cossack groups are building ties with Serbs in the Balkans. But are they just promoting Russia, or finding fighters for it too? A few days before the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia on January 1, 1993, a group of around 50 men approached the country’s border and requested passage.

Seventy-one days after Dejan Stanimirovic was found at a roadside in Colombia, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his face, the remains of the 45-year-old Serb were interred in Villavicencio’s crumbling Central Cemetery, where headstones sink into the ground and colonial-style architecture decays at the hands of the city’s tropical …

The Albanian parliament has endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, making the country one of the first Muslim-majority countries to adopt the definition.The IHRA, an intergovernmental organization with 34 member countries, established an international consensus on a working definition of antisemitism.

Against the background of military conflicts in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, quiet political-military diplomacy is being conducted on the European continent at the request of Greece.

The European Commission is proposing, as part of its new migration pact, to create independent monitoring mechanisms to investigate allegations of migrant rights abuses. Central and Southeast European member states have reasons to resist this.

The US State Department, in unusually tough language, slammed Turkey for creating another crisis off the coast of a small Greek island. Turkey has been using NAVTEX, a naval warning announcement, to force its navy into Greek waters or off the coast of Greek islands under the guise of “research.” …

U.S. and Greek officials plan to launch a wave of investments in a bid to designed to stymie China’s bid for economic clout and political influence in Southern Europe.

In recent months, the conflict between Turkey and Greece has sharply escalated over the disputed gas fields on the Cyprus shelf, which are being developed by Ankara. Moreover, the conflict caused a split in the unity of the European Union, since Cyprus demanded tough measures against Turkey, threatening to block …