A Tunis appeals court on Tuesday approved a request by the new Libyan authorities for the extradition of their former prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi, the court's clerk said.

The court "approved the extradition request" made by the new Libyan authorities for the extradition of Mahmudi, despite concerns expressed by rights groups and Mahmudi himself over his safety.

More than 3,500 people have been killed in the Syrian regime's brutal crackdown on dissent, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday, deploring the slaughter that went on despite a peace plan.

"The brutal crackdown on the dissent in Syria has so far claimed the lives of more than 3,500 Syrians," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Syria's opposition on Tuesday urged the Arab League to stand strong against President Bashar Assad's regime as the United Nations said its crackdown on dissent has left more than 3,500 people dead.

In a letter, the Syrian National Council urged the pan-Arab bloc "to take a strong and effective position against the Syrian regime commensurate with the dangerous development of the situation in Syria."

Iran said on Tuesday that the West had no serious proof it was developing nuclear weapons, ahead of a report by the U.N. atomic watchdog that is expected to provide new evidence against Tehran.

"There is no serious proof that Iran is going to create a nuclear warhead," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said, responding to a question about the IAEA report during a visit to neighboring Armenia.

Nearly three million Muslim pilgrims were performing the final rituals of the hajj on Tuesday as the world's largest annual gathering neared its close without major incident.

The most dangerous rite of the annual hajj proceeded peacefully as pilgrims rushed to throw 21 stones at three pillars that symbolize the devil, the last rite of the annual pilgrimage which is compulsory for all Muslims who can make the journey.

Only crippling sanctions against Iran's central bank and its oil and gas industries will force Tehran to halt its nuclear drive, a senior Israeli minister said in remarks published on Tuesday.

According to the Maariv newspaper, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the only thing which would cause Iran's Islamic regime to sit up and listen was a series of "crippling sanctions."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Monday that the Obama administration would work with ascendant Islamist parties of the Muslim world, answering one of the central U.S. policy questions resulting from the Arab Spring.

Delivering an address at the National Democratic Institute, Clinton offered a forthright embrace of the democratic changes enveloping North Africa and the Middle East at a time when the euphoria of the successful revolutions from Egypt to Libya is giving way to the hard and unprecedented work of creating stable democracies.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday it will begin this week to clear unexploded munitions in Libya's Bani Walid and Sirte, where several civilians have been hurt or killed by explosives.

"The ICRC will clear unexploded munitions in Sirte and Bani Walid, focusing on the contaminated areas that pose the greatest threat to civilians, especially some of the least destroyed neighborhoods where people are attempting to return to their homes," said the relief agency in a statement.

British Foreign Minister William Hague called Monday for "ever-increasing" international pressure, rather than military intervention, to end the violent repression in Syria.

"I don't think the answer to (the repression) now or subsequently would be a military intervention from outside," Hague told reporters in Strasbourg after a meeting of Council of Europe ministers.

Syria has sent the Arab League a letter asking for support against what it called U.S. involvement in "bloody events" in the country, the 22-member pan-Arab group said in a statement on Monday.

The statement said the letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused Washington "of actual involvement in bloody events in Syria" and asked the League to "condemn the involvement and to do what is necessary to end it."