Saudi Arabia and Egypt on Saturday called for a peaceful solution to the conflict roiling Syria, but said the terms of a settlement to end the bloodshed there must be defined by the Syrian people.

"A peaceful solution in Syria is necessary and it is desired by Arab countries and the international community," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Kamel Amr.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi will visit Egypt next week for talks on bilateral ties and the crisis in Syria, the ISNA news agency reported Saturday quoting an Iranian diplomat.

Salehi will meet with his counterpart Mohammed Kamel Amr and President Mohammed Morsi during his two-day visit which begins on January 9, said Mojtaba Amani, the head of Tehran's interests section in Cairo.

The United Arab Emirates has rejected a request from Egypt for the release of 11 of its nationals detained for suspected links to Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood, the Gulf News newspaper reported on Saturday.

The case has sparked a sharp deterioration of relations between Abu Dhabi and Cairo, which had already been strained since the election of Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi as Egyptian president last June.

Egyptian security forces have seized U.S.-made anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles destined for Gaza, where militants have said they would acquire more weapons to use against Israel, security officials said on Friday.

The officials said six missiles were found hidden in the Sinai, which borders both the Gaza Strip and Israel, after security forces were tipped off to the hiding place.

Egypt has set up a council to negotiate the release of its nationals arrested in the UAE reportedly for spying and raising funds for President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party, local media said Thursday.

The council, formed by the newly-empowered senate, will "work towards the release of Egyptian doctors in the Emirates and investigate the circumstances of (their) arrest," newspapers quoted senate president Ahmed Fahmi as saying.

Egypt sent a top official to the UAE for talks on Wednesday, a day after reports that 10 members of a group linked to President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party were arrested there.

Essam el-Haddad, Morsi's adviser for foreign affairs and international cooperation, held talks with UAE Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum, WAM state news agency said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Wednesday that the final section of a security fence along the border with Egypt's barren Sinai should be finished by the end of March.

Netanyahu on Wednesday attended a ceremony marking the completion of 230 kilometers (144 miles) of the barrier, with just over seven miles still to go, in the vicinity of the Red Sea resort of Eilat.

An Egyptian newspaper editor is under investigation for allegedly insulting President Mohamed Morsi, a prosecution source said on Wednesday, a day after a similar probe was launched against a comedian.

State prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim ordered the investigation into Abdel Halim Qandil, editor of the Sawt al-Umma newspaper and a critic of Morsi, after a political activist sued him for allegedly insulting the president.

Agriculture Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan banned on Wednesday the import of livestock from the southern Brazilian state of Parana where a case of atypical mad cow disease was confirmed last month.

Al-Hajj Hassan banned as well the import of frozen meat from Parana.

Egyptian prosecutors were interrogating on Tuesday an Israeli man in the Red Sea port of Nuweiba who is suspected of espionage, a judicial source said.

"An Israel man was arrested on Monday in Taba on suspicion of espionage. He was remanded today in police custody for four days pending investigation," the source said.