Riga - NATO's top official reassured Baltic nations of their security as members of the alliance Friday in the wake of Russia's war with Georgia.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - all former Soviet satellites - have been concerned for their security after watching Russian tanks roll into Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia.

"Nobody should doubt that this alliance ... given when necessary will do what is necessary," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told journalists in the Latvian capital Riga after talks with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers and the three Baltic foreign ministers.

Moscow - Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Friday for talks, news agencies reported.

"We regularly talk and review our relations at the highest level," Lavrov said at a joint press conference in Moscow. "I mean our trade relations, questions concerning the completion of the nuclear power plant at Bushehr, and other issues."

Russia this year sent the first shipments of nuclear fuel to the plant it is building for Iran in Bushehr.

Riga - Diplomats from NATO nations will visit Georgia next week despite Russian objections at the show of support for the country's pro-Western government, the alliance's top civilian said Friday.

The North Atlantic Council, which groups ambassadors from all 26 NATO members, plans a two-day trip starting Monday that includes a stop in Gori, a strategic town shelled by Russian forces during last month's fighting between the two countries.

Moscow  - The flight of two Russian nuclear-capable bombers to South America this week is proof that "any region in the world" is within reach of the country's long-range bomber fleet, Russia's air force commander said on Thursday.

"We have tested ourselves, and our bombers are capable of making flights to any region in the world," Colonel General Pavel Androsov told a briefing in Moscow on Thursday.

The TU-160 bombers, known as "Blackjack" by their NATO codename, were not equipped with nuclear weapons when they landed in Venezuela on Wednesday for a four day stay ahead of joint naval exercise in the Caribbean.

Androsov said in the televised briefing the planes carried only dummy missiles.

Helsinki  - A planned underwater Baltic Sea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany does not pose a security threat to the region, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said Thursday.

Jung, who visited Finland for talks with his Finnish counterpart Jyri Hakamies and other officials, told reporters the 1,200-kilometre pipeline instead had to be studied from an environmental and economic perspective, Finnish news agency STT reported.

The pipeline envisaged by the Nord Stream AG consortium was planned to run from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald, Germany. The consortium has ruled out a land-based route.

Rome  - Syrian foreign minister Wallid Moallem on Thursday indicated Syria would not follow its Russian ally's decision to recognize South Ossetia's independence.

"We have not recognized Kosovo," Mo'allem said in Rome, replying to a question on whether Damascus would, given its close ties to Moscow, also recognize the breakaway Georgian region's independence.