Turkey has some 12-14 million Kurds out of a total population of 70 million, but public use of the Kurdish language is still banned. Islam’s holy book the Koran is to be translated into Kurdish as part of Turkey’s efforts to boost the rights of Kurds and to meet European …

A tiny sliver of land on the Dniester river, Transdniestria declared its independence from Moldova in September 1990. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was on Wednesday brokering peace talks between the Moldovan president and the leader of the ex-Soviet state’s separatist Transdniestria region. For a story on the talks, click on. …

Smirnov and Voronin met in Moldova last year for the first time in seven years. Moldova, its breakaway Transdniestria region and Russia agreed after talks on Wednesday that an international mission may replace Moscow’s peacekeepers in the conflict zone once a peace deal is concluded. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev invited …