Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed Friday to lodge a bid for U.N. membership before the Security Council in one week, despite mounting Israeli and U.S. opposition.

"We are going to the Security Council," he said in a televised address to the Palestinian people from his Ramallah headquarters.

Iraq's leaders, including the president and prime minister, have repeatedly called on Iran to release two U.S. hikers convicted by Tehran for spying, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"We passed messages to the Iranians at all levels, from the president himself to the prime minister to the foreign minister," Zebari said, referring to President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Syria has filed a “strong formal protest memorandum” with the Arab League over Wednesday’s meeting between its Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi and “figures claiming to represent the Syrian opposition,” Syria’s official news agency SANA said Friday.

The opposition figures “handed al-Arabi a list of demands calling for all forms of flagrant foreign interference, including military intervention,” SANA said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday, telling him the era of oppressive dictators is past.

Erdogan, who is in Tripoli on the final leg of his "Arab Spring" tour, hailed the advent of democracy in Libya and the "memory of martyrs who sacrificed themselves for their country and their religion."

Thousands of supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rallied in Baghdad and south Iraq on Friday to decry graft and poor public services, holding up broken appliances to highlight their plight.

In the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in the capital, protesters also railed against the U.S. military presence in Iraq and held up pictures of their leader alongside Iraqi flags, while demonstrations also took place in several central and southern cities.

Israel's foreign ministry on Friday summoned the Egyptian ambassador after statements by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, who said the peace treaty between the two states is "not sacred", Israeli website Ynet reported.

Foreign Ministry Director General Rafi Barak summoned Ambassador Yasser Reda to express Israel's "irritation over the recurrent calls from senior Egyptian officials over the need for modification to the peace treaty," Ynet reported.

Hundreds of people gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square Friday to protest against the recent expansion of the emergency law, amid palpable anger over the military's handling of transition from autocratic rule.

Last week the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) widened the scope of the emergency law -- restricted in 2010 by ousted president Hosni Mubarak to narcotics and terrorism -- to strikes, traffic disruption and the spreading of rumors.

Fighters loyal to Libya's new leaders surged Friday into the city of Sirte and into Bani Walid oasis, two of fugitive Moammar Gadhafi’s few remaining bastions, officials and an Agence France Presse reporter said.

On the political front, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Tripoli, boosting international support for the National Transitional Council (NTC) a day after Britain's David Cameron and France's Nicolas Sarkozy became the first foreign leaders to visit the new Libya.

Security forces in Syria shot dead at least 46 people in operations across the country on Friday, the Syrian Revolution General Commission said.

In the central city of Homs, two demonstrators were shot dead by security forces when several thousand people gathered to protest, activists said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in the Libyan capital on Friday on the final leg of his "Arab Spring" tour, an Agence France Presse photographer said.

Erdogan arrived from Tunisia at Tripoli's airport, where he was greeted by Mustafa Abdel Jalil, number two in the new ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), whose forces last month toppled despot Moammar Gadhafi.