France and Saudi Arabia believe that any future deal between Iran and six major powers must ensure not to destabilise the region further and threaten Iran's neighbours, the two countries said ahead of a summit in Riyadh on Tuesday.
Islamist rebels and Syrian army troops on Thursday were engaged in heavy fighting in Syria's northwestern Latakia province in areas close to President Bashar al Assad's ancestral home, the army and rebels said.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has told French television the intelligence services of his country are in contact with their counterparts in France, which has severed diplomatic ties with Assad and insists he must leave power.
Saudi Arabia, whose late King Abdullah once urged the United States to "cut off the head of the snake" by attacking Iran's atomic program, has publicly welcomed a framework nuclear deal with Tehran, but in private mistrust remains deep.
A third of Republicans believe President Barack Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outranking concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Russia is supplying weapons to Damascus under contracts completed since the conflict in Syria began in 2011, as well as under earlier deals, President Bashar al-Assad said.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria dismissed as "malicious propaganda" allegations that his troops used chlorine gas in the fight against insurgent rebels, according to an interview broadcast on Friday on CBS "This Morning."
The European Union has imposed sanctions on a Syrian businessman who it says bought oil for the Syrian government from Islamic State militants who have seized wide areas of the country including its oil-producing regions.
About 180 Americans have traveled to Syria to join Islamist militants and around 40 of them have returned to the United States, the U.S. National Intelligence director, James Clapper, said on Monday.
France and Britain dismissed on Friday any suggestion of restoring relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying this would likely end all hope of a political transition and push moderates into the arms of radical Islamist groups.
A French lawmaker who went to Damascus for the first talks with Syrian officials since the 2012 closure of France's embassy there faces possible ejection from the ruling Socialist Party, its chairman said on Thursday.
Islamic State militants have abducted at least 220 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria during a three-day offensive, a monitoring group that tracks violence in Syria said on Thursday.
The United States and Turkey have reached a tentative agreement to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition fighters and expect to sign the pact soon, U.S. and Turkish officials said on Tuesday with Ankara predicting a signing in days.
Iran has denied a Wall Street Journal report that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently responded to a letter sent in October by U.S. President Barack Obama suggesting cooperation with Iran in fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The death toll after nearly four years of civil war in Syria has risen to 210,060, nearly half of them civilians, but the real figure is probably much higher, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
Jordan hanged two Iraqi jihadists on Wednesday including a female militant in response to an Islamic State video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive by the hardline group.
Syria's prime minister said on Sunday the country wanted to drive all insurgents out of its territory in 2015 and was prepared to back any attempts to fight global militancy.
The turmoil hitting Saudi Arabia's neighbor Yemen will pose the first big test for King Salman, and provide a glimpse as to whether his approach to hotspots in a fragmenting region will differ from that of his late brother.
President Bashar al-Assad has said U.S.-led air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria should be subject to an agreement with Damascus and Syrian troops should be involved on the ground.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah died early on Friday and his brother Salman became king, the royal court in the world's top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam said in a statement carried by state television.
An Israeli helicopter strike in Syria killed a commander from Lebanon's Hezbollah and the son of the group's late military leader Imad Moughniyah, Hezbollah said, in a major blow that could lead to reprisal attacks.
