U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would be "mistaken" if he thinks he can defeat the opposition against him.

"If Assad continues as he has to fail to end the violence, ... then it is unlikely he is going to ever agree" to implement the peace plan he agreed to with U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, Clinton told a press conference.

Israel on Sunday deported a Palestinian woman prisoner who spent 43 days on hunger strike to the Gaza Strip, under a deal that has been criticized by Palestinians.

Eyewitnesses and Palestinian officials told Agence France Presse that Hanaa Shalabi entered Gaza via the Erez border crossing, and was being transferred by ambulance to a local hospital for tests.

Tunisia's president Sunday prolonged a state of emergency imposed on January 14, 2011, the day the former regime fell, to the end of April, citing security risks, his office said.

"This decision was made after consultations with the head of the national constituent assembly and the head of government," President Moncef Marzouki's office said in a statement.

Jordanian military prosecutors on Sunday charged 13 political activists with incitement against the regime, rioting and insulting King Abdullah II, a day after police broke up their demonstration.

"State Security Court prosecutors accused the 13 of inciting the public against the country's political regime, rioting and insulting the king," a court official told Agence France Presse.

Saudi Arabia has arrested 681 people over the past four months allegedly involved in the trafficking of drugs worth around $460 million, an interior ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

"Security services arrested 681 suspects, among them 96 Saudis and 585 from 33 other nationalities, who have been involved in crimes related to smuggling, receiving, transferring and promoting drugs," General Mansour Turki told reporters.

An international conference in Istanbul by "Friends of Syria" countries on Sunday urged the United Nations to act to stop the violence and recognized the opposition Syrian National Council as the "legitimate representative of all Syrians," but steered clear of backing opposition appeals for arms to fight the regime clampdown.

In a final declaration, the conference urged Syria mediator Kofi Annan "to determine a timeline for next steps, including a return to the U.N. Security Council, if the killing continues."

Iraq's fugitive Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi left Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region for Qatar on Sunday, a statement from his office said.

Hashemi "left the Kurdistan region of Iraq this morning, Sunday, going to Doha in the brother state of Qatar," accepting an invitation he had previously received, the statement emailed to AFP said.

A deadline must be set for the Syrian regime to implement a peace plan by international envoy Kofi Annan, France's foreign minister said on Sunday.

"There is a risk of course of dragging out, and we can see the tactics of the regime that is to buy time," Alain Juppe told reporters on the sidelines of the second "Friends of Syria" conference in Istanbul.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime will not fall and attempts to overthrow it by force will aggravate the crisis in the region, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Sunday.

"It has been one year and the regime did not fall, and it will not fall, and why should it fall?" Maliki told a news conference in Baghdad.

Violence in Syria killed at least 72 people on Sunday, among them 15 members of the security forces who died in firefights across the country, activists said.

Security forces killed 57 people in several regions, including four children and three women, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.