U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is planning to dip his toes into yet another of the world's intractable conflicts, announcing Tuesday he will visit Cyprus in the coming weeks.

Meeting with Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides at the State Department, Kerry praised the Mediterranean island's current Greek Cypriot leadership for trying to reach a "long sought-after resolution" to its four-decade division.

Hillary Clinton's health is "100 percent," an aide asserted Tuesday after Republican strategist Karl Rove made the bombshell suggestion that the former secretary of state had suffered a serious brain injury in 2012.

Rove made the remarks at a conference last Thursday that he attended with President Barack Obama's former spokesman Robert Gibbs, according to the New York Post's Page Six.

Turkey said Tuesday it will defy a European court order to pay 90 million euros ($124 million) in compensation to Greek Cypriots over its 1974 invasion of the island.

The European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to pay the damages this week, 13 years after finding it guilty of "massive and continuous" rights violations against Greek Cypriots on the island.

Deadly violence flared in the restive east of Ukraine on Tuesday even as Europe stepped up its diplomatic efforts to resolve the escalating crisis on its doorstep.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was in Ukraine to push the Kiev authorities and pro-Moscow rebels to come together at the negotiating table after the East-West security body OSCE drew up a roadmap aimed at easing tensions.

The new prime minister of Serbia traveled to Bosnia on Tuesday, pledging to respect borders and rebuild ties that remain tense nearly two decades after the devastating conflict that tore the region apart.

"I arrived for a visit to Sarajevo and Bosnia-Hercegovina as a friend, as someone who represents a country that respects the territorial integrity of Bosnia," Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told reporters after meeting his Bosnian counterpart Vjekoslav Bevanda.

Iranian and U.S. officials in Vienna for a fourth round of nuclear talks cautioned Tuesday that there was still hard work to be done before a final deal can be reached.

Arriving in Vienna for the negotiations aimed at drafting the text of an accord ahead of a July 20 deadline, Iran's foreign minister said "a lot of effort" was still needed.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday asked the country's parliament for a six-month extension to the state of emergency in three northeastern states riven by Islamist militant violence.

"I most respectfully request the distinguished senators to consider and approve by resolution an extension of the proclamation of the state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states by a further term of six months from the date of expiration of the current time," Jonathan wrote in a letter seen by Agence France Presse.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday rejected growing criticism that his government was muzzling the press, saying many Western countries had even worse records on media freedom.

Erdogan's speech to parliament followed a report by the U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House earlier this month, which downgraded Turkey's status from "partly free" to "not free" and said the country had seen the biggest decline in press freedom in Europe.

Two foreign mountaineers have returned to Everest after a deadly avalanche effectively ended the climbing season, flying by helicopter partway up the peak before starting their ascents, an official said Tuesday.

The female climbers, from the United States and China, took the rare step of hiring a helicopter that flew them above the Khumbu Icefall, where the worst accident in the mountain's history killed 16 sherpa guides, the air charter company said.

Italy lashed out at the European Union on Tuesday after 17 bodies were recovered and 206 people were saved from a migrant shipwreck, as rescuers described scenes of panic in the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano urged more assistance from Europe for border patrols, threatening that otherwise Italy would defy EU asylum rules and allow migrants to travel on to other countries in Europe.