Iran on Monday urged "honesty" at crucial talks with world powers due to be held this week in order to defuse a tense international showdown over its disputed nuclear activities.

"We hope the P5+1 will come to the negotiating table with honesty, and we also will make an honest effort so that both sides reach a win-win conclusion," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told the Iranian parliament's website.

World powers will hold a fresh round of nuclear talks with Iran in Istanbul on April 14, a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Monday.

"We have agreed to launch talks in Istanbul on April 14," Michael Mann said.

French police have released without charge 10 suspected Islamists arrested in pre-dawn raids two days ago, the second such swoop in less than a week, a judicial source said on Friday.

Of 10 alleged extremists arrested Wednesday, four were released on Thursday and the remaining six walked free on Friday, the official said.

Fears grew Friday that a serial killer was stalking housing estates in the suburbs of Paris, where the same weapon has been used to murder four apparently innocent citizens since November.

The latest killing on Thursday of a 47-year-old mother, shot dead near her home in the Essonne suburb, prompted Interior Minister Claude Gueant to vow every effort was being made to find the killer.

Canada on Thursday ordered the extradition of a university professor of Lebanese descent wanted in France in connection with a deadly 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue that left four dead and dozens wounded.

Hassan Diab, a sociologist at the University of Ottawa who has denied any involvement, will have one month to appeal the justice ministry's extradition order, said ministry spokesman Christian Girouard.

Tuareg rebels of north Mali's National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) on Friday proclaimed the "independence of Azawad" in a statement on their website and through a spokesman on France 24 television.

"We solemnly proclaim the independence of Azawad as from today," said Mossa Ag Attaher, who added that the rebels would respect "the borders with other states."

A French nuclear reactor shut down automatically Thursday after two small fires at the installation in the north of the country that firefighters quickly extinguished, officials said.

EDF, the operator of the power plant in Penly on the English Channel near the port of Dieppe, said the installation was secure, no-one was injured, and there were "no consequences for the environment".

The U.N. Security Council will have to take "very urgent and serious" action if Syria fails to meet an April 10 deadline to halt its military operations in protest cities, U.S. ambassador Susan Rice said Tuesday.

U.N. Security Council members negotiated a statement backing the April 10 deadline that U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan says Syria has accepted, as fierce clashes were reported between government forces and rebels.

Some of the 16 suspected Islamic militants detained in France allegedly planned to kidnap a Jewish magistrate and other people, a source close to the investigation said on Tuesday.

"It looks like some of them planned to carry out kidnappings including that of a magistrate who has a Jewish-sounding name," the source said.

France has expelled two Islamist radicals and is planning to deport three more as part of a crackdown announced after a gunman killed seven people, officials said Monday.

An Algerian radical and a Malian imam were sent back to their home countries on Monday, while a Saudi imam, a Turkish imam and a Tunisian radical were also subject to expulsion orders, the interior ministry said in a statement.