ANKARA (Reuters) – Fifteen Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes with Kurdish PKK separatist rebels in southeast Turkey Saturday, CNN and other media said.

A number of people have been killed in a car explosion near a Russian base in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia. Initial information about the blast in the regional capital of Tskhinvali came from a South Ossetian news agency.

The head of Syria’s nuclear programme has said that the country’s military sites will remain off-limits to international nuclear inspectors.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said any price lower than 100 dollars for a barrel of crude oil is “unsuitable” for both producers and consumers.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s second international gas conference opened in Tehran today.The 2-day gathering, which is said to have some 100 foreign participants, will be addressed by Iran’s oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari and senior managers of the country’s petroleum industry.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian government has agreed to extend the credit facility for Sri Lanka to meet its crude oil requirements for another three months at a concessionary interest rate.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran hopes that Azerbaijan and Armenia will express their opinion soon about Iran’s proposals on mediation in the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a senior Iranian diplomat said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The incoming president of the UN Security Council said that competition between Iran and Japan for a UNSC seat should not lead to a vote.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Among the more daring recommendations in a new report by the Pakistan Policy Working Group, a bipartisan group of American experts on US-Pakistan relations, is that the United States should eventually reconsider its opposition to a proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The UN General Assembly’s head Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann apparently annoyed several western countries when he dismissed West’s negative propaganda against Iran at a time the Islamic Republic is seeking to become a UN Security Council member.