Eurasia

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s military plans to station a total of 7,600 servicemen at bases in Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Tuesday.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Russia’s relations with Poland have rarely been easy but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visits Warsaw on Thursday amid particularly sharp disputes over missile defense and Moscow’s army offensive in Georgia.

Ukraine has been given a morale-boost at talks with senior European Union officials in Paris, but no pledge was offered for membership of the bloc.

The fight against terrorism and militant violence has come under the spotlight at the swearing-in of Pakistan’s new president.

Moscow says its soldiers are likely to stay in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for a long time, a day after agreeing to a deal to pull troops out of Georgia proper. 

TEHRAN (FNA)- Russia’s Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of energy giant Gazprom, has agreed to develop Iran’s North Azadegan oilfield and produce oil at three other fields.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The United States’ continued interference in the Caucuses and Central Asia has made Moscow plan or consolidate strategic alliance with regional countries to counter NATO and US presence in the region.

MEIENDORF CASTLE, Russia – (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Russia on Monday to seek a lasting peace deal for Georgia that will persuade Russia to pull its troops out of positions deep inside the ex-Soviet state.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – Missiles fired by U.S. drones killed 13 people, including 7 foreign militants, on Monday in a Pakistani village where a religious school founded by an old friend of Osama bin Laden is located, intelligence officials and witnesses said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan has reopened supply lines to Western forces in Afghanistan, after the road through the Khyber Pass was blocked on Saturday, days after a raid by U.S. commandos on a Pakistani village, a minister said on Monday.