Libya said on Wednesday it accepted the apology of a US official who had joked about Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's call for jihad against Switzerland and that normal ties would resume. The foreign ministry said it was "satisfied" with the remarks made by US State Department spokesman Philip Cowley on Tuesday, adding that "it accepts the apology and the deep regret," of the State Department.

Russia and India will sign defence and other deals worth more than 10 billion dollars during a visit by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to New Delhi this week, a top official said Wednesday. "A preliminary estimate shows that the volume of the business deals in monetary value will top 10 billion dollars," Putin's foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov told reporters.

Regret expressed by a US official, who joked about Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's call for jihad against Switzerland, was a victory for Tripoli, a newspaper said on Wednesday. "Libya has won a victory in the battle begun by the US State Department's spokesman," daily Al-Fajr Al-Jadid said. Philip Crowley's apology proved that Tripoli's position was "well justified" and showed the government's "ability to prtoect its dignity," the paper said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad Wednesday for talks with Pakistani leaders after his government called for the extradition of a senior Taliban commander captured in Pakistan. Karzai will stay in Pakistan for two days. It is his first visit to neighbouring Pakistan, which like Afghanistan is battling Taliban militants, since his controversial re-election in troubled polls last year.

European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Wednesday urged Brussels powerbrokers to give up their traditional fiefdoms and allow her to do her job unfettered. "Europe is going through a phase of building something new," she told lawmakers in the EU parliament in Strasbourg, France. "Where people have to adjust their mental maps and institutions have to find their new place.

US Vice President Joe Biden told Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday Israel's decision to expand settlement activity in Jerusalem "undermines" the trust needed for peace talks. "It is incumbent on all parties to grow an atmosphere of support for the negotations and not to complicate," Biden said, flanked by Abbas after the two held talks in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Riyadh Wednesday for talks expected to focus on Iran's nuclear programme and Washington's push for tough sanctions against Tehran. Gates's plane touched down at Riyadh's international airport from Afghanistan where he reviewed war efforts against the Taliban and conferred with coalition troop commanders, according to an AFP correspondent.

Albanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ilir Meta is to visit Serbia, the first high-level contact between Tirana and Belgrade in over five years, Serbian officials said Wednesday. Ties between the two countries have been strained since Belgrade broke diplomatic relations with Tirana in 1999 over Albania's support for ethnic Albanians in Kosovo during the 1998-1999 conflict there.

The king of the Belgians, Abelrt II, will attend 50th anniversary celebrations of former colony Democratic Republic of Congo's independence, the Belgian government said Wednesday in the strongest sign yet of strained relations easing. Twenty-five years after the last Belgian royal visit, when the Congo was in the grip of Zaire dictator Joseph Mobutu, Prime Minister Yves Leterme's spokesman told AFP that his cabinet has "given its agreement in principle" to the trip in June.

Greece has been added to the US Visa Waiver Program, allowing its citizens to travel to the United States for 90 days at a time without a visa, the US Homeland Security Department said Tuesday. The announcement from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, which came as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou visited Washington, adds Greece to a list of 35 countries whose citizens can visit the United States visa-free.