ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish police yesterday arrested six people with suspected links to a homegrown radical Islamist group who were allegedly planning to assassinate leading figures, the Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, detained in the western city of Izmir, were believed to be members of the Islamist Great Eastern Raiders Front, an outlawed group which aims to establish Islamic rule in secular Turkey. Police seized a list of 10 people that the suspects were allegedly planning to kill, which included the names of politicians, artists, clerics and foreigners, Anatolia said, without elaborating. The suspects were also preparing attacks against foreign missions and companies as well as places of worship in Turkey, after which they planned to contact al-Qaida for attacks on international targets, the agency said.

ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey yesterday signed an agreement with neighboring Iran for joint power production projects despite US pressure against investment in the Islamic republic. Energy Minister Hilmi Guler played down US discontent with flourishing energy cooperation between its NATO ally Turkey and Iran, saying more agreements would be concluded in the coming days. “The signing (of agreements) will continue. Our efforts are continuing,” Guler told a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart Parviz Fattah after the two signed the power production deal.

More than 300,000 Bosnian Serbs have signed a petition opposing parliamentary reforms, organizers said yesterday – a reflection of widespread fear that the process could lead to the end of their mini-state within Bosnia-Herzegovina. Miroslav Lajcak, a Slovak diplomat who is the top international administrator in the ethnically divided country, drew up the reforms in a bid to strengthen the central Bosnian parliament and the country’s case for EU membership. The reforms would change the way a quorum is calculated, making it more difficult for lawmakers to block decisions by not attending votes. (AP)

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has approved a bill setting the legal framework for the country’s first nuclear power plants, his office said in a written statement yesterday. The legislation, which had been vetoed by Gul’s predecessor Ahmet Necdet Sezer in May, authorizes the Energy Ministry to run and finalize tenders for the construction of nuclear power plants and decide on their capacity and location. It provides for public institutions to build the plants if there is no interest from the private sector. The government has said it plans to build three nuclear plants with a total capacity of about 5,000 megawatts to become operational in 2012 in a bid to prevent a possible energy shortage and reduce dependence on foreign energy supplies. (AFP)