Middle Orient

Iraq urged Turkey on Saturday to give it time to implement measures aimed at restricting the movements of Kurdish separatist rebels, a day after Iraq’s president said a Turkish incursion was now “almost inevitable”.

Iraq’s former deputy health minister and a former senior ministry official will soon face trial, the Iraqi government said on Saturday, after accusations they helped Shi’ite militiamen fuel sectarian bloodshed.

The bodies of at least 30 people, including women and children, have been found in a mainly Sunni Arab area of Baghdad, police and government officials said on Saturday.

Afghan security forces need more foreign training and arms to fight the Taliban but when the forces are up to strength the insurgents will not pose a long-term threat to stability, the defense minister said on Saturday.

Two of Pakistan’s leading private television networks, ordered off air during emergency rule, said on Saturday they had been forced to close down altogether after being ordered to halt transmissions via the United Arab Emirates.

At least 30 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said on Saturday.

The widow of a Pakistani journalist, shot dead last year after reporting that an al Qaeda leader was killed by a U.S. missile, was killed in a bomb blast on Saturday in a northwestern tribal region, a family member said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Saturday said that he has a number of proposals to make at the upcoming heads of state summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini here Saturday expressed regret over the death of a number of Bangladeshi citizens during thunderstorms and heavy rain falls in the country.

Iran’s Fars province and Kenya signed an agreement to boost mutual cooperation in the tourism sector.