Eurasia

BUCHAREST, Romania — Defence Minister Teodor Melescanu says Romania will boost dialogue with Russia to dispel concerns over the deployment of US bases in Bulgaria and Romania.

Bush arrived in Poland on Friday for talks on a planned US missile shield in central Europe after receiving a surprise Russian counter-offer to base it in Azerbaijan.

ANKARA, Turkey — The government on Wednesday (June 6th) denied media reports that Turkish troops carried out an operation against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists based in Iraq.

BEIJING (Reuters) — China hit back at critics of its policy on Sudan on Thursday, saying forcing UN troops on Khartoum would complicate efforts to resolve the Darfur crisis and calling attempts to link its policies there with the Olympics “ridiculous”.

ANKARA (AP) — Turkey has declared several areas near the border with Iraq to be “temporary security zones” in a sign of increasing activity by the military in its campaign against Kurdish rebels.

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin, bitterly opposed to a US missile shield in eastern Europe, told US President George W. Bush on Thursday that Moscow would drop its objections if the system were installed in Azerbaijan.

Russia’s Putin has suggested a rogue proposal to United States of America to share a Russian-controlled radar as part of an anti-missile shield that would try to protect all of Europe.

MOSCOW, June 6 (Reuters) – Russian authorities for the first time blocked nationalists from using a popular Internet blog to organise anti-migrant demonstrations, one of the leaders of a nationalist group told Reuters on Wednesday.

BEIJING, June 7 (Reuters) – Hundreds of students clashed with police and burnt cars in central China after street inspectors beat up a female student, a police officer and a witness said on Thursday, the latest in a series of public disturbances.

Babacan: Turkey must choose EU or Third World Turkey will be relegated to the status of “a Third World country” unless it applies EU standards of democracy and the rule of law, the country’s chief EU negotiator State Minister Ali Babacan said on Tuesday.