Iranian MPs have signed a draft law aimed at banning Europe-bound oil tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz to punish EU nations that slapped sanctions on the Islamic republic, reports said on Monday.

"This project is a response to the oil sanctions imposed by the European Union on the Islamic republic," Ebrahim Agha Mohammadi, of parliament's foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency.

The Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land on Monday hailed the granting by UNESCO of world heritage status to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as a "diplomatic victory" for the Palestinians.

But it called on the Palestinian Authority to respect existing arrangements dividing care of the West Bank site between the Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches.

A U.N. sanctions committee on Monday removed a leading London-based Saudi reform activist from its al-Qaida blacklist in the face of opposition from the Saudi government.

Saad al-Faqih and his Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia were both removed from the U.N.'s al-Qaida sanctions list following a recommendation from an ombudsman.

The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip said on Monday it has "temporarily" halted voter registration just over a month after granting the electoral commission permission to work.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday called on the international community to enforce a political solution in Syria while reiterating there would be no military intervention.

"The right response to this crisis remains a political response. And a concerted response by the international community against a regime that has lost all humanity and all legitimacy,' Rassmusen told a news conference.

Jordan is trying to woo the powerful Muslim Brotherhood after it gained more ground following the election of Islamist Mohamed Morsi as Egypt's first civilian president, analysts said on Monday.

Urging opposition Islamists to take part in early elections this year, King Abdullah II on Thursday ordered parliament to amend a controversial electoral law after they threatened to boycott the polls.

Turkish warplanes have struck three locations in northern Iraq, believed to be Kurdish rebel hideouts, the army said in a statement Monday.

The army command said it hit "three shelters belonging to the separatist terrorist organization," referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels, after exploratory flights located the hideouts on June 26-30.

The International Criminal Court's president landed in Tripoli on Monday as court officials said Libya was poised to free a legal team detained after visiting slain leader Moammar Gadhafi's jailed son.

South Korea's Sang-Hyun Song arrived at Tripoli's Metiga military airport at 12:45 pm (1045 GMT), an AFP photographer said, where a high-level delegation including Justice Minister Ali Hmeida Ashur was waiting for him.

Syria's main exiled opposition groups met in Cairo Monday to try to forge a common vision for a political transition in Syria after criticizing a blueprint agreed by the major powers last week in a compromise with China and Russia.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi, who chaired the meeting attended by around 250 opposition figures, urged opposition groups "not to waste this opportunity" and to "unite."

The Palestinian self-rule government has detained some 200 people, including security officers, in recent weeks in the biggest crackdown on illegal weapons in the West Bank in five years, a spokesman said Monday.

Officials say the campaign is unusual because it targets include alleged vigilante gunmen linked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. Previously, security forces went mainly after armed supporters of rival groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.