British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Saturday condemned the use of force against protesters during deadly clashes in Cairo and accused Egyptian security forces of using live rounds.

Hague also called on Egyptian authorities to either release or charge all political leaders detained since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on July 3. Morsi himself remains in detention.

Egypt's interior minister pledged on Saturday that protests calling for the reinstatement of ousted president Mohammed Morsi would be dispersed "soon," as police blamed the latest deadly clashes on Islamists.

Speaking at a news conference, Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said security forces would act "in a legal fashion" to disperse the demonstrations "as soon as possible."

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet in Washington on Tuesday for a round of talks after a three-year break, a Palestinian official said on Saturday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he told Agence France Presse that the Palestinian delegation would be led by chief negotiator Saeb Erakat with the Israelis headed by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets Saturday for the funeral of an opposition leader assassinated with the same weapon that killed a colleague, as tensions soared after anti-government protests.

Draped in the red and white Tunisian flag, Mohamed Brahmi's coffin was saluted by soldiers as the cortege left his home in the Tunis neighborhood of Ariana for El-Jellaz cemetery.

Regime forces backed by Hezbollah now control half of the Khaldiyeh district of Homs after ousting rebels in fierce fighting in the central Syrian city, a watchdog said on Saturday.

"Loyalist forces backed by fighters from Hezbollah have advanced over the last 24 hours and now control 50 percent of Khaldiyeh," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The United Nations said Friday it reached an agreement with Syria on an inquiry into the use of chemical weapons, but did not say U.N. inspectors would be allowed in.

Two U.N. envoys went to Damascus on Tuesday and Wednesday and held talks with Syria's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, read a brief U.N. statement.

A bomb exploded near a police post in the port of Tunis on Saturday, damaging a police vehicle, the interior ministry said.

The blast, the first known attack of its kind against a security vehicle in Tunisia, came just hours before the funeral of assassinated opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi.

Protesters attacked offices of Libya's Muslim Brotherhood on Saturday as demonstrations sparked by a wave of assassinations in the eastern city of Benghazi turned violent, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Youths stormed and ransacked the building housing the Brotherhood, after hundreds took to the streets overnight to denounce the assassination of Abdessalem al-Mesmari, an anti-Islamist lawyer who campaigned for a civil state.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned against any plans for an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria as officials met the leader of the war-torn country's main Kurdish group Friday.

Turkish government officials held talks with Saleh Muslim, the leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which is seen as the Syrian branch of Turkey's banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

A long-running sit-in in Cairo by supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi will be ended "in the framework of the law," Egypt's Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said early Saturday.

In a telephone interview with satellite television station Al-Hayat, he was asked about the sit-in at Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya square.