TURKEY The government will continue to take every step necessary to achieve success with its recently announced Kurdish initiative, regardless of what the cost may be, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said. Speaking at his party’s Extended Province Chairmen meeting on the eighth anniversary of the Justice and Development …

The impact of the constant objection by French and German leaders to Turkey’s European Union membership drive has been revealed through a public survey that showed a significant loss of confidence in these two countries among the public. According to the survey, conducted this month by the Ankara-based International Strategic …

BULGARIA, MACEDONIA Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov promised that he will look into the case of Spaska Mitrova. Tthe ex-Bulgarian President Petar Stojanov discussed the Mitrova case with the Macedonian President Ivanov in a telephone conversation. Ivanov vowed to get familiarized with this case in the following days, take adequate actions …

ALBANIA The Union of the Albanian Police Force requested today from the Interior Minister Bujar Nishani to resign from the post. The Union’s Syndicate Valentin Matsaj said that the Union’s move was prompted by suspicions that members of police forces had tipped the criminal Dritan Dajti about busting operation against …

SLOVENIA Slovenian authorities plan to build three artificial islands nearby Izola. The construction, predicted to start in two years would cost 217 million euros and 11.8 kilometers of sea cost will be added. Construction of these kinds of islands is hit among the countries, specially the ones from East, where …

WASHINGTON, US The Pentagon confirmed Friday that it is sending a team of trainers to Georgia to instruct a Georgian battalion which will be deployed to Afghanistan next year. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters at a briefing here that the U.S. trainers will arrive in Georgia on Monday to …

BULGARIA The leader of the ethnic Turkish party DPS, Ahmed Dogan will be sanctioned for not showing at four out of five of the Bulgaria Parliament sessions in July. This has been announced Friday by the National Assembly’s Chair, Tsetska Tsacheva, BGNES reported. Dogan’s salary will be cut by 2/3ds …

BULGARIA Bulgaria’s Minister without a portfolio, Bozhidar Dimitrov, said Friday he was ready to serve the three-month prison sentence of Spaska Mitrova, a Macedonian with Bulgarian passport. The 23-year-old Mitrova was jailed over failing to provide a bed in her parent’s house for her former husband who was supposed to …

Friendly talks between the leaders of Germany and Russia have been dominated by trade and investment, but also covered human rights. President Dmitry Medvedev and Chancellor Angela Merkel met in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The Kremlin has said the global economic recession presents positive bilateral opportunities. Medvedev said: …

The latest killings illustrating Russia’s difficulty with security along its southern flank were in the early hours of Friday — seven women in Dagestan, where a newspaper editor lost his life on Tuesday. Islamist rebels shot the women at around the same time as separatists killed four policemen at a …