Eurasia

Skopje government wants to increase the good relations with Bulgarian caretaker government which is currently lead by Bulgaria’s former ambassador to France, Marin Raykov. An agreement on good neighborly relations with Bulgaria is being negotiated and expected to be signed soon.

The Bulgarian Parliament will hold its last session on Thursday, just one day after the Bulgarian President released a decree that dissolved it. The meeting is scheduled to start at 9:00 in the morning (local time) and the members of the Parliament are expected to make statements.

EU High Representative Catherine Ashton Wednesday repeated calls for the head of the Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad to step down but stressed that there can be no military intervention without an UN Security Council resolution.

Britain and Russia tried to present a unified front over the Syrian crisis on Wednesday, but their deep differences on whether outside powers should arm the rebels were quickly laid bare. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said arming Syria’s opposition would

France and its African allies want a heavily-armed force able to counter any resurgent Islamist threat in Mali as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, diplomats said. The United Nations is considering setting up a 10,000-strong force in the former French colony

A joint session of the old and new cabinet will be held today in Banja Luka and a new government of the Republic of Srpska (RS) will take office. The RS Assembly elected late Tuesday the new government led by Prime Minister Željka Cvijanović.

European Parliament (EP) President Martin Schultz believes the EU should set a date for the beginning of the EU accession negotiations for Serbia. He stressed that the EP’s Foreign Affairs Committee would say in a draft resolution that Serbia had make a great effort.

The UN’s top humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, on Wednesday began a two-day visit to Turkey, meeting Syrian refugees at a camp in southern Anatolia. Speaking at the start of her visit to the southern province of Kilis, Amos, the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu will visit Kurdish-populated Diyarbakır province amidst efforts to end three decades of insurgency. Davutoğlu will travel to Diyarbakır late March 14 to deliver a speech at a university the morning of March 15.

Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandyan will leave for a working visit to Berlin on March 13-14 at the invitation of German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. He will meet with senior officials representing the