Moscow - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Russian Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday for sensitive talks on Iran's nuclear programme and Russian arms sales to country's in the Middle East.

Medvedev told journalist at the meeting that Russia was intent on expanding its role as one of the Quartet of international negotiators in Middle East peace talks, news agency Interfax reported.

Moscow has expressed ambitions to host a peace conference as a follow-up to the US-sponsored Annapolis conference last year.

Moscow - Russia's military said Tuesday that its pullout from the buffer zone around Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia would get underway on Wednesday.

In a report by the Interfax agency, Russian forces commanding General Marat Kulakhmetov said the withdrawal would be completed within 24 hours.

"During the first half of the day tomorrow we will start with the planned withdrawal of our peacekeeping soldiers from all six observation posts," he said.

Moscow - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday summoned the head of the country's state banks to the Kremlin after Russia's leading indexes free fell in the sharpest decline since their inception.

The start of trading was delayed until the afternoon on Moscow's RTS and MICEX exchanges following a 19 per cent dive in stocks Monday.

The Kremlin has pledged over 150 billion dollars in loans to banks and small lenders to stave off its worst financial crisis since national debt default in 1998.

New York - The conflict involving Russian and Georgian troops over South Ossetia has remained unsettled, influencing the determination of the role of the UN military observer mission in the area, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

But he urged the council to extend the mandate of the small UN force until mid-February while discussion and arrangements would bring some clarity to the situation.

Moscow  - Trading on Russia's two leading stock markets was twice halted on Monday as stocks plunged to three-year lows amid deepening woes on the European markets and a dive in oil prices.

Russia's ruble-denominated MICEX dropped 16.7 per cent to 757.44 points before trading was suspended for the second time on Monday afternoon, while the dollar-denominated RTS free fell 15 per cent to below the 1,000-point mark to as low as
902.37 points.

Moscow/Sukhumi, Georgia  - A border guard was shot dead in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia on Monday, local agencies reported, while Russian troops said an explosion hit its convoy in a sign of ongoing violence in the EU-monitored border zones.

Abkhaz police chief for the Gali district, Laurens Kogonia, said border guard Mukhran Ashuba died in a shootout in the village of Nabakevi.

No one was injured in the blast that hit a column of Russian armored personnel carriers preparing to withdraw from a buffer zone in Georgia under the supervision of EU monitors, deputy troop commander Alexander Novitsky told news agency Interfax.