U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Friday to take "hard decisions" to revive the Middle East peace process, which has stalled for almost three years.

Kerry has been pressing Israel and the Palestinians to resume direct peace talks that broke down in September 2010, notably over the issue of Jewish settlement building.

International efforts to organize a Syria peace conference are at fever pitch, but in Jordan's Zaatari camp, Syrian refugees are more concerned with the misery of their daily lives than diplomatic maneuvering.

"To be honest, we're fed up with these conferences, there have been many... without results. We want a radical solution," said Saleh, a former laborer from Syria's southern Daraa province.

Fighters loyal to al-Qaida have seized control of villages near the Yemeni port city of Mukalla in an apparent bid to take over swathes of the southeastern province of Hadramawt, the interior ministry and residents said on Friday.

The ministry condemned what it said was a "terrorist plot to proclaim an Islamic emirate in the Ghayl Bawazir area" near Mukalla, the provincial capital.

Syria's opposition on Friday urged President Bashar Assad's government to speak out on whether it will take part in an international peace conference, after Russia claimed the regime had agreed "in principle" to attend.

"We would like to hear that statement from the Assad government. This has been related to us through the Russians, I have no idea why the Syrians are silent," Louay Safi, spokesman for the National Coalition, told Agence France Presse at a meeting of the main Syrian opposition group in Istanbul.

Syria's main opposition group is set to hold a second day of talks Friday, mulling a new U.S.-Russian peace initiative to end the two-year civil war while the regime vows to crush the insurgency.

Holding its seventh general assembly meeting since its creation last November, the National Coalition is expected to choose a new president, incorporate new members and decide the fate of an interim rebel government.

Yemen welcomed President Barack Obama's decision Thursday to lift a moratorium on transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the Gulf country.

Obama announced the move in a major speech outlining a new bid to close the "war on terror" prison, saying history will "cast a harsh judgment" on the offshore detention program and those who failed to end it.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels next week must extend the arms embargo on Syria and push for a political solution to the country's civil war, British-based charity Oxfam said Friday.

The aid agency said it would be "irresponsible" not to widen the arms ban and warned a failure to do so could extinguish hopes of a breakthrough at the U.S.-Russian peace summit scheduled for June 12.

The Arab League said on Thursday it will submit to the U.N. Security Council a list of proposals for a June peace conference aimed at ending the conflict in Syria.

The pan-Arab body's Syria committee, which met in Cairo on Thursday, agreed on "several points to help the next international conference in Geneva succeed," it said in a statement without elaborating.

President Bashar Assad told a Tunisian delegation on Thursday he was determined to crush the rebellion against his regime and to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria, SANA news agency reported.

"Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis," Assad was quoted as telling the delegation, the official agency said.

The pro-opposition Friends of Syria meeting held in Amman has blocked the way for the international peace conference proposed by the United States and Russia, Syrian state news agency SANA said on Thursday.

"The participants, who have declared themselves spokesperson for the Syrian people, have blocked the way to the international conference (proposed by Moscow and Washington) by saying that they were going to boost support to the Syrian opposition," the agency said.