Syrian strongman Bashar Assad's exiled uncle, a former regime insider accused of carrying out a massacre in 1982, says he wants to oversee a peaceful transition of power in his homeland.

On Sunday, Rifaat Assad took charge of a new opposition movement in exile. Afterwards, in an interview with AFP and Le Monde, he urged Arab and world powers to negotiate his nephew's safe departure from power.

Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said Monday that the government in Damascus will not budge despite its suspension from the Arab League, which he warned was a "dangerous step."

"The decision of the Arab League to suspend Syria... represents a dangerous step," Muallem told a packed news conference in Damascus.

Syria's opposition has asked Turkey for permission to open a representative office in the country, a Turkish diplomat said Monday.

The Syrian National Council, the country's largest and most representative opposition grouping, put the request to Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during talks on Sunday, the diplomat said.

Kuwait has denied that two of its citizens arrested in Iran were spying, saying they were working for a private television channel and had obtained visas to enter the Islamic republic.

"An official source at the foreign ministry categorically denied the accusation," made against the two citizens, said a statement posted on the state-run KUNA news agency late on Sunday.

Three French hostages kidnapped by al-Qaida militants in Yemen more than five months ago are on their way home, a tribal official involved in their release said on Monday.

"They travelled by land to the Sultanate of Oman and will be flying to France from there," the chief who led the mediation efforts with al-Qaida militants told Agence France Presse.

Israeli air raids on the northern Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian overnight and wounded four others, doctors said Monday, after a rocket attack on Israeli territory.

The raids destroyed a security post of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and left two other Palestinians missing, they said.

Iran has rejected claims by Manama that it has links to a "terrorist" cell busted in Bahrain, state television's website reported on Monday.

Amir Abdolahian, a deputy foreign minister in charge of Arab and African affairs, was quoted as saying that the "baseless allegation" had been "fabricated by the United States."

The Arab League is to hold a fresh meeting on Syria on Wednesday, an official said, amid signs of cracks in the resolve of the 22-member bloc to suspend Damascus over its lethal crackdown on protests.

The agenda for Wednesday's meeting includes an assessment of the degree to which Syria had applied its November 2 agreement with the Arab League to end its crackdown on protests.

The Bahraini judiciary on Sunday linked an alleged busted "terrorist" cell to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a day after announcing the arrest of five Bahrainis planning attacks in the Arab kingdom.

The five men are accused of belonging to a "terrorist group" with ties to the intelligence services of a foreign state, a judiciary spokesman said, quoted by state news agency BNA.

Russia will continue exporting arms to Syria since no international decision has been made outlawing it, said a top industry official quoted by the news agency Interfax Sunday.

Speaking at the Dubai Air Show, deputy director of the Russian Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service (FSVTS) Viacheslav Dzirkaln said: "Since there is no restriction on arms deliveries to Syria, Russia respects its contractual obligations with the country."