Iran may consider dialogue with the United States as long as it is between "equals" and Washington respects its people's rights, Foreign Minster Ali Akbar Salehi said in an interview Friday.

"We have not ruled out establishing relations with other countries barring the Zionist regime (Israel), but it is possible that our relations are in an unusual situation with countries like the United States," Salehi told the official IRNA news agency.

Syrian security forces shot dead two people on Thursday as they pressed their clampdown on dissidents in the central city of Homs, the capital and elsewhere, activists said, calling for mass protests.

"There was heavy gunfire in the al-Khalidiyeh, Baba Amr and al-Nazhine quarters (of Homs), and two people were killed," said Abdul Karim Rihawi, head of the Syrian League for Human Rights.

New ministers in a sweeping reshuffle of Egypt's cabinet were sworn in before the military ruler on Thursday, as the prime minister sought to appease protesters over the pace of reform.

"The new ministers in the government of (Prime Minister) Essam Sharaf took their oaths ... in front of the commander of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi," the official MENA news agency reported.

Yemeni Republican Guards shot dead one protester and wounded three in the second-largest city of Taez on Thursday, medics said.

The Guards opened fire as thousands of people protested against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in central Taez, a flashpoint city south of the capital Sanaa, according to organizers.

Israel will not "take responsibility" for the deaths of nine Turkish nationals by apologizing to Ankara over its botched 2010 raid on a ferry heading for Gaza, a senior cabinet minister said Thursday.

"We are not ready to apologize as apologizing is taking responsibility," Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters in Jerusalem.

A Tunisian court on Thursday opened two more trials of ousted president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, now living in exile in Saudi Arabia, accusing him of corruption and property fraud.

Ben Ali's daughter Nesrine and son-in-law Sakher el-Materi are also charged in the first case.

Syria's security forces Thursday pressed a clampdown against dissidents in the central city of Homs, where shots were heard, arrests were made and many streets were deserted, rights activists said.

"(Security forces) entered houses and made arrests," said Rami Abdel Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reached by telephone.

Germany is serving as an intermediary in a bid to convince Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to stand down amid a popular revolt against his three-decade-long rule, a newspaper report said Thursday.

Germany's daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported in a front-page article that Berlin had sent an envoy to appeal to Saleh to accept a proposal by the Gulf Cooperation Council and head off further bloodshed in the country.

Ayad al-Shabwani, a leader of Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was killed during a battle with the army that left 10 soldiers dead, a military source and medics said on Thursday.

Shabwani was killed on Tuesday by artillery fire during heavy fighting that continued into Wednesday between the army and suspected al-Qaida militants near Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, east of the main southern city Aden, the military source said.

The new Egyptian cabinet is due to be sworn in on Thursday, a military official said, three days behind schedule after last minute negotiations and the prime minister's admission to hospital.

"The new ministers in Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's government will be sworn in on Thursday in front of the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi," the official told the state MENA news agency.