WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A US citizen was kidnapped in Iraq on Monday along with three Romanian journalists, the US State Department said late on Wednesday. «We can confirm that an American citizen was taken along with the three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq on Monday,» said State Department Spokesman Steve Pike, declining to provide further information. The three Romanians were shown in a video broadcast by Arabic satellite television Al Jazeera on Wednesday with guns pointed at their heads as they appealed for their freedom. A fourth person, whom Romanian media described as their translator, was also shown but it was not known if this was the US citizen.

SOFIA (AP) - Romania and Bulgaria pledged yesterday to smooth out what they described as «tiny» bilateral problems by 2007, when the two Balkan neighbors hope to join the European Union. «There are a few issues... and we should set a deadline for their solution so that the two countries do not take the bilateral problems of their past into the European Union,» Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu told a news conference after talks with his Bulgarian counterpart, Simeon Saxe-Coburg. Tariceanu said the problems included differences over the delineation of the continental shelf between the two countries in the Black Sea, minority issues, and customs procedures at border crossings. He refused to be drawn into details, saying the issues were «awaiting consideration.»

Bulgaria's government said yesterday that it would propose to Parliament a cut in the Balkan state's troop numbers in Iraq to 400 in June and a full withdrawal by year-end. «The government proposes Parliament allow the Bulgarian light infantry battalion to fulfill, until December 31, its mandate for maintaining security and stability in Iraq,» government spokesman Dimitar Tsonev told reporters. Parliament, which has final say over any troop deployments, is expected to vote on the proposal before it stops work ahead of the national elections expected on June 25. (Reuters)

A Belgrade court yesterday issued an arrest warrant for a former Yugoslav army chief who failed to appear earlier this week at his trial on attempted assassination charges, a court spokeswoman said. Retired Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic - also wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands - failed to appear Tuesday at a hearing in Belgrade in the trial over the assassination attempt on a leading opponent of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Police searched for Pavkovic, one of eight defendants at the trial, at his home but failed to find him. (AP)