Eurasia

Turkish Cypriots held general elections on Sunday in a vote likely to boost hardliners and complicate efforts to resolve the long-running division of Cyprus, a threat to Turkey’s European Union accession bid. Just under 162,000 people are voting in parliamentary elections in breakaway northern Cyprus, a sliver of territory only …

Russia has taken a gamble in giving Chechnya’s independent-minded president responsibility for security as this may embolden him to attempt to wrest the province from Moscow’s control. Russia has fought Chechen rebels in two wars since 1994 to crush attempts at independence, but in recent years the Kremlin has preferred …

THE HAGUE, Netherlands The case at The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of Kosovo’s independence is “the trial of the century”, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said on Friday (April 17th), as the two sides in the trial presented their arguments.

BERLIN, Germany Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday (April 19th) that his country would strengthen the EU’s internal market if it joins the bloc. Erdogan was speaking in Hanover, a day after attending a birthday party for former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who turned 65 on April …

ANKARA, Turkey Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the Ankara mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the secular Turkish state, on Sunday (April 19th) to protest arrests stemming from an alleged plot to topple the country’s Islamic-rooted government.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) High Representative Valentin Inzko said on Sunday (April 19th) that constitutional changes in BiH are no condition for shutting down the office of the high representative or for the country’s EU accession.

TIRANA, Albania President Bamir Topi on Sunday (April 19th) again urged all citizens to participate in the June 28th general elections, given the importance of these elections to potential EU membership.

ASTANA  – Kazakhstan will not take part in NATO-led military exercises in Georgia in May, the Kazakh defense minister said on Tuesday. Kazakhstan was earlier scheduled to take part in the Cooperative Longbow/Cooperative Lancer-2009 command-and-staff exercise, which Russia has criticized as unhelpful in the wake of last summer’s armed conflict …

MOSCOW  – The pro-Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia has detained several observers from the OSCE for illegally crossing the Georgian-South Ossetian border, a separatist official told Reuters on Tuesday. “OSCE representatives were detained on South Ossetian territory for illegal border crossing,” Irina Gagloyeva said, without giving further details. She …

JAKARTA, April 21 – Romania has appointed Gheorghe Vilcu as the country’s ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a statement from the ASEAN Secretariat said here Tuesday. The new ambassador becomes the ninth ambassador to ASEAN, who comes from the European Union (EU). Vilcu presented his letter …