Xinhua Middle East news summary at 2200 GMT, Nov. 22

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said here on Saturday that the European countries must diversify their energy resources in order to obtain energy security especially in face of Russian energy threat.

Biden made this statement at the Atlantic Council of Energy and Economy summit in Istanbul while addressing to more than 300 international political leaders and energy experts. (Turkey-Summit)

- - - - BAGHDAD -- Iraqi security forces launched a major offensive against the Islamic State (IS) militant group in the country's western province of Anbar on Saturday, while battles with the group continue in the northern central province of Salahudin, security source said.

In Anbar province, the security forces, backed by allied tribal fighters and aircraft, launched in the early hours of the day a major offensive against the IS militants who earlier seized al- Sajjariyah suburb in the eastern city of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. (Iraq-IS)

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DAMASCUS -- The U.S.-led anti-terror coalition has killed more than 900 people in its strikes inside Syria during the past 60 days, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

The death toll includes 52 civilians, eight of whom were children and five women, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the casualties were a result of the U.S.-led strikes in areas rich of oil fields and wells in Syrian provinces of Hasaka, Deir al-Zour, al-Raqqa, Aleppo and Idlib. (Syria-Air strikes)

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TEHRAN -- Iran is ready to allow UN nuclear inspectors to access the Marivan nuclear site, a facility suspected of being used to develop explosive weapons, the spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency on Saturday.

"We are ready to provide a controlled access to the Marivan site to prove the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear activity," Kamalvandi told IRNA, as the country's nuclear negotiators are engaged in intensive talks with the powers in Vienna of Austria to break the impasse in a run up for a nuclear deal ahead of Monday's deadline. (Iran-Nuclear) Endi