An Iranian deputy foreign minister, whose country remains an ally of unrest-swept Syria, held talks in Damascus on Wednesday with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, Syria’s state news agency SANA said.

It said Muallem briefed the Iranian envoy, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, on the wide-ranging reforms being undertaken in Syria in the face of "ferocious attack ... by terrorist groups backed by foreign parties."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy Wednesday urged his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to give full support to an Arab League peace plan to persuade Bashar al-Assad to quit as Syria's leader.

During a phone conversation, Sarkozy also told Medvedev of "the necessity to increase the pressure on the Syrian regime to cease its brutal repression of the Syria people," said a statement from the French president's office.

Tunisia's new President Moncef Marzouki arrived in Morocco Wednesday to push for a revival of a dormant project to unify the Maghreb region on his first foreign tour since taking office.

"This year we will work to restore unity with our brothers in Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania, with the aim of resuscitating the great dream of a Union of the Maghreb which has been frozen for years," he told the official Moroccan news agency MAP.

The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismael Haniya, is on Friday to make a visit to Iran, which is celebrating the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian government officials said.

The Palestinian was to be received by Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, the officials said, without giving other details or the duration of the visit.

Bahraini authorities have rejected visa requests by journalists to cover the first anniversary of the pro-democracy Shiite-led protest that was brutally crushed.

The Information Affairs Authority (IAA) told Agence France Presse on Tuesday it was unable to process a visa for one of its reporters "due to the high volume of applications."

Egyptian judges probing alleged illegal foreign funding of non-governmental organizations on Wednesday accused domestic and foreign groups, including American ones, of illegally meddling in politics.

The NGOs are operating "without license," and their work "constitutes pure political activity and has nothing to do with civil society work," Judge Sameh Abu Zeid told a press conference.

Russian leaders under fire for a U.N. veto Wednesday rejected outside interference in the Syrian conflict, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warning against behaving "like a bull in a china shop."

"Of course we condemn violence from whichever side it comes, but we must not behave like a bull in a china shop. We need to allow people to decide their own fate independently," Putin said in televised remarks.

Gulf foreign ministers have rescheduled their meeting on Syria to Sunday in Cairo, a Gulf Cooperation Council official said on Wednesday.

"The meeting which was set to take place in Riyadh on Saturday will now be held in Cairo on Sunday ahead of the Arab League ministerial meeting" in the Egyptian capital, the GCC official told Agence France Presse on the condition of anonymity.

Britain and France said on Wednesday they had little confidence in promises made by Syria to Russia over the violent crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Assad's promises to Russia to work towards ending bloodshed in Syria were merely manipulation and should not be believed, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said, as British Prime Minister David Cameron said London had "very little confidence in that."

U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay called Wednesday for urgent international action to protect civilians in Syria, as troops continued to shell the city of Homs, a center of protest in the country.

"I am appalled by the Syrian government's willful assault on Homs, and its use of artillery and other heavy weaponry in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas in the city," said a statement from Pillay.