The political instability across the Middle East could last for decades, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday.

Hague said the turbulence in the Middle East was the most significant event of the 21st century so far, but urged optimism over the prospects for peaceful democracy in the region.

Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak has been granted conditional release in one of the corruption cases against him, but will remain in custody on charges in an additional case, judicial sources said Monday.

His lawyer plans to appeal against the fourth and final case, which is also related to corruption, in a bid to secure the former president's release, according to a judicial source.

Three boats carrying more than 200 migrants have landed in Italy, officials said on Monday, the latest arrivals due to calmer weather and unrest in north Africa.

Some 100 people including 17 women and 11 children arrived on one boat that was intercepted by coast guard vessels and taken to Catania in Sicily.

Turkey's Islamic-rooted government on Monday accused the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its Turkish secretary general of remaining indifferent to the bloodshed in Egypt.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said he would have resigned as head of the OIC because "I couldn't accept the stance of an Islamic organization whose name carries the word Islam in the face of such brutality."

The United States is providing Amman with technical assistance against any possible chemical threat from neighboring Syria, Jordan's prime minister said on Monday.

Abdullah Nsur made the comment at a news conference a day after U.N. inspectors tasked with investigating whether chemical weapons have been used in the 29-month Syria war arrived in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Arab and Islamic countries will step in to help Egypt if Western nations cut aid packages to Cairo over its deadly crackdown on Islamist protesters.

"To those who have announced they are cutting their aid to Egypt, or threatening to do that, (we say that) Arab and Muslim nations are rich... and will not hesitate to help Egypt," Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in a statement carried by the kingdom's SPA state news agency.

Iraq has put 17 people to death, 16 of them on terrorism-related charges, the justice ministry said Monday, the latest in a series of executions that have drawn international condemnation.

They are the first executions announced by the ministry since brazen July assaults on two major prisons freed hundreds of prisoners, including some who had been sentenced to death, drawing criticism within Iraq that executions were proceeding too slowly.

EU foreign ministers will hold emergency talks Wednesday to forge a response to Egypt's blistering violence, possibly withholding aid or arms while urging a political solution in the key Arab nation.

"We will respond to the current situation," the European Union's special envoy to Egypt, Bernardino Leon, said at the close of hastily called talks between senior diplomats from the bloc's 28 member states.

A former judge, aged 79, was gunned down as he left a mosque in the restive eastern city of Benghazi on Monday, a Libyan security services spokesman said.

"Fethi Lekhfifi, a former judge, was shot dead as he came out of a mosque in Benghazi at dawn," said Colonel Abdallah al-Zayedi.

Egypt is on the "right path", foreign minister Nabil Fahmy said Monday in Sudan on his first trip abroad, after hundreds died in clashes between Egyptian Islamists and security forces.

"Yes there is a crisis but we are on the right path and I believe in the future," he said after talks with his Sudanese counterpart Ali Karti.