ANKARA (AP) – Turkey’s president wrote to US President George W. Bush yesterday, warning that a bill recognizing the World War I mass killings of Armenians as genocide would harm ties between the two allies. President Abdullah Gul’s letter warned of “serious troubles in the two countries’ relations” if the bill is passed, Gul’s office said in a statement. It said Gul had thanked Bush for his administration’s efforts to stop the bill from passing, but gave no further details. The Bush administration opposes the bill and has been pressing Congress to reject the measure.

BELGRADE (AP) – A Serbian court yesterday convicted three neo-Nazis and sentenced them to up to 25 days in prison after a clash with anti-fascists, in an incident that has triggered public debate about extremist groups in the country. Nearly 60 followers of the extremist Nacionalni Stroj (National Guard) group were arrested on Sunday after they defied a ban and gathered in a protest against Kosovo independence.

A Serbian court has sentenced a man to 31 years in prison for a deadly bomb attack in the country’s increasingly tense Muslim south, Beta news agency reported yesterday. The court in the town of Novi Pazar found Fahrudin Gusinac guilty of “throwing a hand grenade at the family home of Mahmut Hajrovic, aiming to kill its members,” judge Camil Hubic was cited as saying. Hajrovic was seriously injured, but his wife Zumreta suffered fatal wounds when the explosive device was thrown through a window in the early hours of November 14, 2006. (AFP)

A Croatian man pleaded not guilty yesterday at his retrial for the killing of three police officials in the early days of the 1991 Serbo-Croat war – an incident that many believe helped fan the fighting. Antun Gudelj is accused in the killing of the Croatian district police chief in Osijek, eastern Croatia, and two of his aides, which further raised tensions between Croats and Serbs. (AP)

Milan Djukic, a prominent leader of Croatia’s minority Serbs and a former deputy parliament speaker, died Monday of illness at the age of 61, his family said yesterday. Djukic led the Serb People’s Party since the early 1990s, representing Croatian Serbs who did not join their compatriots’ armed rebellion against Croatia’s independence from the former Yugoslavia, which triggered a six-month war. As a representative of a minority, he was deputy parliament speaker in 1992-1996 and a lawmaker from 1992 until 2004. (AP)