Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's Foreign Minister Abdelati al-Obeidi is to visit Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, reports said Tuesday.

Lavrov and al-Obeidi will discuss the current situation in Libya and African Union-led mediation efforts in the meeting on Wednesday afternoon in Moscow, Russian news agencies said, without giving further details.

World leaders on Saturday hailed the birth of the world's newest nation, the Republic of South Sudan, as a historic event bringing to a close 50 years of conflict in northeastern Africa.

U.S. President Barack Obama led official recognition of the country, calling it "another step forward in Africa's long journey toward opportunity, democracy and justice."

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is ready to cede power in exchange for security guarantees; an unnamed senior Russian official was quoted as saying in Tuesday's edition of the Kommersant business daily.

The press report came one day after NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen discussed Libya in Russia with President Dmitry Medvedev.

A visiting Syrian opposition delegation urged Russia on Tuesday to use its diplomatic clout to convince President Bashar al-Assad to give up the use of force against civilians.

"Russia can use its leverage on the Syrian regime to send a clear message that this way of behavior is unacceptable," said rights advocate Radwan Ziadeh, who is head of Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies in Washington.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday added to the uncertainty surrounding Russia's 2012 presidential polls, saying he wanted a second term but would not stand against powerful predecessor Vladimir Putin.

With just nine months left before the March elections, neither Medvedev, 45, nor Putin, 58, have announced their candidacy amid warnings from businesses that the uncertainty was now hurting the investment climate.

Russia and China oppose outside interference in the unrest in the Arab world, the two presidents said Thursday in a declaration, as the West seeks their support in increasing pressure on Syria.

"The sides believe that the search for settling the situation in the countries of Middle East and North Africa should take place in the legal field and through political means," said the declaration signed by Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Hu Jintao.

The leaders of China and Russia on Wednesday pressed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to show more cooperation to resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff, in a rare meeting at a regional security summit.

Presidents Hu Jintao and Dmitry Medvedev held separate meetings with Ahmadinejad but delivered a similar message of the need to improve dialogue, as the Iranian president again denounced the West as "slavers and colonizers".

Russia is not playing the role of mediator in the Libya conflict, Foreign Minister Segei Lavrov said on Tuesday after a Kremlin envoy was dispatched to the rebels' stronghold in Benghazi.

President Dmitry Medvedev's envoy Mikhail Margelov met Libyan rebel leaders on Tuesday in the first trip by a top Russian official to their stronghold, as NATO warplanes pounded the capital.

Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad has said he believes the unrest roiling his country is coming to an end while acknowledging that security services had made mistakes in trying to tame a two-month revolt.

The international community, meanwhile, appeared divided Wednesday on how to tackle the Syrian crisis. Switzerland joined an EU-led sanctions regime, while Russia warned it would oppose any proposed U.N. resolution to intervene with force in Syria.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev was shown dancing awkwardly to a pop song in a video spreading across Russian Internet on Wednesday that he said showed a reunion of his university class.

The brief clip uploaded on YouTube by an unidentified person showed the Russian leader in a suit jacket and jeans stepping and waving his hips alongside several other people to a perestroika-era hit song "American Boy" with a concentrated expression on his face.