World

The UN demand that Iraq destroy all missiles that exceed their allowable range was unexpected and the Baghdad government is studying the order, its chief liaison to the weapons inspection regime said. Gen. Hossam Mohamad Amin also said "it is not necessary" for Iraqi scientists to be taken to other countries so they can be interviewed by inspectors. But he maintained that his government has complied with all UN resolutions on disarmament.

A vote in parliament is expected Tuesday on whether to allow US forces to use Turkey as a staging base for war with neighboring Iraq, Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said. "I think we'll get somewhere," he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won his first ally in forming a new coalition government. But as the National Religious Party announced its decision to join the government, the opposition Labor Party said it no longer would discuss the possibility of forming a broad-based unity coalition. Shinui, a secular party that almost tripled in representation in parliament in the last election, also is expected to join the government, giving it a one-vote majority.

In a surprise move, the largest Protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland said it has begun a unilateral, one-year truce. The Ulster Defense Association (UDA) also announced plans to resume discussions with the international commission charged with disarming both Catholic and Protestant militant organizations. The announcement said, however, that the UDA would surrender no weapons until the Catholic Irish Republican Army did so first.

Three Americans whose plane crashed in southern Colombia last week are hostages, the nation's largest Marxist rebel movement said. Calling the Americans "CIA agents," the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said their safety could only be assured if government troops halted all operations in the region.

A truck driver was in police custody in Serbia for allegedly trying to kill Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic by ramming his motorcade Friday near Belgrade, the capital. Djindjic was unhurt, but he and other senior government officials were assigned additional bodyguards.

Despite a ban on public demonstrations, an estimated 40,000 Armenians gathered in their capital Sunday to demand that President Robert Kocharian resign. The protest was the second in three days following last week's national election, in which Kocharian was forced into a runoff. In a warning to political opponents Saturday, he said his government reserves the right to use force against "all attempts to destabilize the situation in the country."