Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

SAMARKAND, September 16. /TASS/: Russia will take part in the G20 summit on the Indonesian island of Bali in November, President Vladimir Putin told reporters on Friday, adding that he had not yet decided whether to attend the event.

"I’ll look into it, we will make a decision. Russia will participate," he said at a press conference following a visit to Uzbekistan.

SAMARKAND, September 16. /TASS/: An agreement on payment of 25% of Russian gas supplies to Turkey in rubles will come into effect in the near future, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday at a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"In the near future, our agreement on the supply of natural gas of Russian origin to Turkey with payment for 25% of these supplies in Russian rubles should come into force," Putin said.

SAMARKAND, September 16. /TASS/: Russan President Vladimir Putin and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev are holding a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand on Friday. Their conversation is taking place against a background of an aggravation of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border this week.

As Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday, the escalation of border tensions, "of course, will top the agenda."

SAMARKAND, September 16. /TASS/: The expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its deeper cooperation with international associations will contribute to ensuring security and stability in the region, says the SCO’s Samarkand Declaration adopted on Friday.

SEOUL, Sept 16 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korea’s export of information and communications technology (ICT) products, kept falling for two months through Aug, government data showed today.

The ICT products shipment dwindled 4.6 percent from a year earlier, to 19.31 billion U.S. dollars in Aug, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

Global demand for locally-made tech products weakened amid rising worries about the global economic downturn.

Semiconductor export reduced 6.8 percent over the year to 10.96 billion U.S. dollars in Aug.

INCHEON, Sept 16 (NNN-XINHUA) – South Korea, today returned to China the remains and belongings of 88 Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War.

The ninth repatriation ceremony was held at the Incheon International Airport, west of the capital, Seoul, attended by a Chinese delegation, led by Vice Minister of Veterans Affairs, Chang Zhengguo, and South Korea’s Second Vice Foreign Minister, Lee Do-hoon, as well as, officials with the defence ministry.

During the ceremony, representatives of China and South Korea signed a handover document.

Sept 16 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of a regional summit on Friday, in their first encounter in over two years since relations soured after Erdogan's comments on the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

In early 2020 India's government had summoned the Turkish ambassador to lodge a diplomatic protest after Erdogan, on a visit to Pakistan, said the situation in Kashmir was worsening. His comments came after Modi's government in 2019 withdrew the region's autonomy and brought it under federal rule.

BISHKEK, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan accused Tajikistan of fresh shelling late on Friday despite a ceasefire deal reached by the two countries' presidents, as a deadly border conflict forced thousands of people to evacuate.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon agreed to order a ceasefire and troop pullback in a meeting in Uzbekistan on Friday, the Kyrgyz president's office said.

SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that now was not the time for war, directly assailing the Kremlin chief in public over the nearly seven-month-long conflict in Ukraine.

Locked in a confrontation with the West over the war, Putin has repeatedly said Russia is not isolated because it can look eastwards to major Asian powers such as China and India.

But at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), concerns spilled out into the open.

TOKYO, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- A powerful typhoon is expected to approach southwest Japan during the weekend, likely bringing violent winds and heavy rain, Japanese weather officials said on Friday.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said large and powerful Typhoon Nanmadol is expected to move close to Okinawa Prefecture and the Amami region of Kagoshima Prefecture on Saturday and the southern Kyushu region on Sunday.