Israel will probably soon apologize to Turkey for a 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla which left nine Turkish activists dead, a senior Turkish diplomat said Tuesday.

"I would be surprised if there were no apologies since both sides have the political will to resolve this crisis," said ambassador Ozdem Sanberk, a member of the U.N. panel probing the Israeli raid.

Iran must respect its borders with Iraq, authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan said on Tuesday, after Tehran's forces clashed with Iranian Kurdish rebels, leaving several dead.

Iran said it had taken "full control" of three camps belonging to the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, a claim disputed by Baghdad.

A local al-Qaida leader -- named Saddam Hussein -- was sentenced to hang by a court in the Shiite holy city of Karbala in southern Iraq on Tuesday, an official said.

"The criminal court of Karbala sentenced Saddam Hussein, the al-Qaida leader of (the village of) Khanafsa to death by hanging," said Mohammed Hamid al-Moussawi, chairman of Karbala's provincial council.

Tunisia's main Islamist movement Ennahda on Tuesday condemned the latest spate of violent incidents in the country and reiterated its commitment to the electoral process.

"We condemn violence wherever it comes from, be it from demonstrators or from the security forces," the movement's chairman, Rached Ghannouchi, said at a press conference.

A leader of suspected al-Qaida militants in Abyan province in south Yemen has been killed by the army, a government official said on Tuesday.

The killing comes as tribesmen across Abyan began expelling the militants from the province.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's Foreign Minister Abdelati al-Obeidi is to visit Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, reports said Tuesday.

Lavrov and al-Obeidi will discuss the current situation in Libya and African Union-led mediation efforts in the meeting on Wednesday afternoon in Moscow, Russian news agencies said, without giving further details.

Egypt's embattled Prime Minister Essam Sharaf was putting final touches to his new cabinet on Tuesday after being hospitalized overnight suffering from exhaustion.

The cabinet, aimed at appeasing protesters who want a purge of old regime figures and quicker reforms, was meant to take office on Monday but a swearing in ceremony was postponed amid objections to the choice of ministers.

Israel on Tuesday intercepted a French yacht heading for the Gaza Strip in defiance of its naval blockade, and began towing it to shore after what the military said was an uneventful takeover.

An army spokeswoman confirmed the interception of the MV Dignite/al-Karama had been conducted without violence and that the boat was being towed to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod.

Iran announced Tuesday it is installing new centrifuges with "better quality and speed" to enrich uranium in its nuclear facilities, defying international demands it halt its atomic activities.

"The installation of new centrifuges with better quality and speed is ongoing. We have announced it and the agency (U.N. atomic watchdog) has full supervision on them," Iranian foreign minister spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters at his weekly press briefing.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh called for "peaceful dialogue," saying that is the way to end the country's long-running political crisis, in an editorial published on Monday.

"We have never ceased to emphasize the necessity of a peaceful dialogue to find a solution to all these problems," Saleh wrote in an editorial that was published in Al-Thawra and other official newspapers.