ZAGREB

Zagreb County Court on Tuesday convicted Milan Martic, the former president of an unrecognised wartime Serb rebel statelet called the Republic of Serbian Krajina, and his military chief-of-staff, Milan Celeketic, of staging rocket attacks on Croatian cities in 1995.

Under the first-instance verdict, Martic was sentenced to seven years in prison and Celeketic to 20 years.

In a statement on March 3, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles warned against inflammatory language.

"Refugees seeking protection should not be treated as a security threat, with heavy-handed military tactics and language," the organisation said.

In just one day in Italy, the same number of people have died as the total of all previous days, and that country became the second in the world in terms of deaths and number of infected people, the Zagreb portal Index.hr reported.

The European Union is scrambling for a new agreement with Turkey to prevent migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond flooding into the EU. But there is little sign so far that Ankara is ready to accept the terms Brussels is offering.

Extraordinary meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council on the situation in Idlib and migration pressure at the EU's external borders took place in Zagreb on March 6, Bulgaria's representative in the meeting was Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Judicial Reform and Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva, BNT reported.

Turkey's decision to open its border with Greece to migrants, ignoring its 2016 migration deal with the European Union, is not acceptable and any such political pressure will be rejected, EU foreign ministers said on Friday.

European Union governments will consider on Friday whether to provide more money for migrants in Turkey, but will not accept that refugees are used as a bargaining tool, the EU's top diplomat said.

"We are going to discuss it," Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, told reporters in the Croatian capital before chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

The meeting will be attended by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, along with the Ministers of the Interior and Defense, Nebojsa Stefanovic and Aleksandar Vulin.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias is heading to Croatia on Thursday to attend the informal meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers, also known as Gymnich, in the context of Croatia's Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs Alexander Schallenberg in a clear show of support for Greece's efforts to stem a large wave of migration into the EU has announced that Austria will offer one million euros to the UNHCR representation in Greece and is prepared to offer more staff to stem the flows either bilaterally or through Frontex, which is about to develo