JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that as a sovereign state, Israel would determine its security policy and which foreign forces to work with.

"We control our own security and we have made clear to international forces that Israel will decide which forces are unacceptable to us — and that is how we act and will continue to act," Netanyahu said at the outset of a cabinet meeting.

"This is, of course, accepted by the United States, as its most senior representatives expressed in recent days."

BASRA,Iraq (Reuters) -At least two workers were killed in an oil pipeline fire in Iraq's Zubair oilfield on Sunday, oilfield officials said.

There was no impact on oil flows, they said, with throughput currently at 400,000 barrels per day.

The blaze, which also seriously wounded five workers, erupted while a group of workers were conducting welding operations near the pipeline, the officials said.

Firefighters were working to extinguish the fire, which broke out on a section of the pipeline that transports crude oil from the Zubair field to nearby storage tanks.

(Reuters) -The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group said on Sunday it was withdrawing from Turkey as part of a disarmament process it is coordinating with the government, and pressed Ankara for concrete measures to move the process along.

The PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, decided in May to disarm and disband after a call to end its armed struggle from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan. The fighting has killed more than 40,000 people.

The Kurdish militant PKK began withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil to northern Iraq on Sunday, while urging Ankara to release its jailed leader to ensure the success of the peace process.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey in May, drawing a line under four decades of violence that had claimed some 50,000 lives.

With no majority in parliament and surrounded by allies outraged by his acceptance of a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have set his sights on Israel's next elections.

A political phoenix, Netanyahu is the country's longest-serving prime minister, has been its dominant political figure for decades and heads one of the most right-wing coalitions in Israel's history.

KUALA LUMPUR Reuters) -Asia's youngest nation East Timor became the 11th member of the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN at its summit on Sunday after being signed in by leaders of member states.

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff and Danial Azhar; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by John Mair)

DOHA (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he does not plan to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin until he thinks a deal is in place to secure peace between Russia and Ukraine.

"You have to know that we're going to make a deal, I'm not going to be wasting my time," Trump told reporters in Doha.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Jason Lange; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli forces carried out a "targeted strike" on an individual in central Gaza who was planning to attack Israeli troops, Israel's military said on Saturday.

A U.S.-backed ceasefire is in force between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas more than two years after the war in the Gaza Strip began, but each side has accused the other of violations.

Israel said it had targeted a member of Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian militant group did not immediately comment on the assertion.

DOHA (Reuters) -Secretary of State Marco Rubio said U.S. officials are getting input on a possible UN resolution or international agreement to authorize a multinational force in Gaza and will discuss the issue in Qatar on Sunday.

Hundreds of Syrian refugees living in Libya poured into a travel agency in Tripoli on Saturday to take advantage of an offer of free tickets to Damascus, AFP journalists saw.

By midday, more than 700 Syrians, many of them residing in Libya for years after fleeing their country's civil war, had come to collect tickets and travel passes from the agency commissioned by the new authorities in Damascus, who ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.

In all, thousands have taken up the offer since it was first announced by the Syrian foreign ministry.