Middle Orient News

TBILISI – Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili is likely to scrape an election win on Saturday in a vote the West will scrutinize for fairness, but polls differ on whether his victory will be big enough to avoid a second round.

DAMASCUS – Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called on Friday for unconditional talks with the rival Fatah faction to halt violence between Palestinians but vowed to keep up the Islamist group’s armed struggle against Israel.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – Turkey’s top general said on Friday a bomb attack which killed five people including three children in the city of Diyarbakir would only strengthen Turkey’s resolve to crack down on Kurdish separatist guerrillas.

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad criticized Israel on Friday for a major military operation in the West Bank, saying such intervention was ruining a Western-backed internal Palestinian security plan.

ISLAMABAD – Violence may erupt in volatile Pakistan in the run-up to February elections but a six-week postponement of the polls has not fueled unrest, the head of a European Union observer mission said on Friday.

ISTANBUL – Turkish police have detained more than 40 suspected members of the outlawed Turkish Islamist militant group Hezbollah, state news agency Anatolian said on Friday.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – The death toll from a bomb explosion in southeast Turkey’s largest city has risen to five, including three children, and the number of injured stands at 110, security sources said on Friday.

GAZA – Israeli troops killed two Palestinian Hamas gunmen and wounded three others in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Islamist faction and hospital officials said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Negotiations are expected to begin later this month between Iran and Iraq over the cleaning up of the strategic Arvand Roud waterway, an adviser to the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said yesterday.

RAMALLAH – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Hamas Islamists on Monday to agree to early elections and to open a “new page” by ceding control of the Gaza Strip and holding reconciliation talks with his Fatah faction.