Norway said Monday it was closing its embassy in Damascus for security reasons, following other countries that have done the same for safety concerns or to protest against the regime's crackdown.

Several European Union countries, as well as the United States, Turkey and six Gulf state monarchies have already shut their missions.

Syrian forces clashed Monday with a group of "terrorists" seeking to enter the restive northwestern province of Idlib from Turkey, killing and wounding a number of them, official media reported.

"The authorities today foiled an attempt by a group of armed terrorists to enter Syria from Turkey, in an area between the towns of Darkush and Salqin," the official SANA news agency reported.

The Israeli foreign ministry decided on Monday to cut contact with the United Nations Human Rights Council after it said last week it would investigate Israeli settlements, a spokesman said.

"There was a decision by the foreign ministry to sever work contacts with the organization," ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Agence France Presse, adding that Israel had yet to formally inform the council of its decision.

After decades at the center of the Arab world, Syria now sits in the dock as regional leaders meet in Baghdad this week over how to end President Bashar al-Assad's bloody crackdown on a popular uprising.

But wide disparities among Arab chiefs' positions may hamper any hope of an aggressive resolution from the meeting, the first to be held in Iraq in more than 20 years and taking place under heavy security after deadly bombings just a week ago.

China said Monday it supports Kofi Annan's efforts to help solve the Syrian crisis, on the eve of a visit by the special envoy aimed at seeking backing for a plan to end fighting there.

Annan, the United Nations-Arab League envoy on Syria, is due in Beijing on Tuesday to brief Chinese leaders about his proposal after visiting Russia where President Dmitry Medvedev offered him Moscow's full support.

Syrian opposition factions will meet again in Istanbul on Tuesday to agree on common objectives for their nation's future ahead of a "Friends of Syria" conference, they said Monday.

Informal discussions have been taking place in a hotel on the outskirts of Turkey's largest city since Sunday, though talks start officially on Tuesday, said Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for the Syrian National Council.

Nearly two-thirds of Israeli Jews believe that the consequences for the Jewish state of a nuclear-armed Iran would be worse than those of an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic, a poll showed on Monday.

The poll, published in Haaretz newspaper, found that 65 percent of Jewish Israelis agreed with the statement that "the price Israel would have to pay for living with the threat of an Iranian bomb would be greater than the price it would pay for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities."

Former Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, a stalwart of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's regime, could run for president in upcoming elections, local press reported on Monday.

"Omar Suleiman approaches the presidential battle," read the headline of the state-owned daily Al-Ahram, adding that his supporters would organize a march to his house to ask him to declare his candidacy officially.

Syrian troops shelled Khaldiyeh district in the flashpoint city of Homs early Monday after a night of nationwide protests against the regime, activists and monitors said.

Khaldiyeh, targeted in a week-long campaign to flush out regime opponents, was hit by mortar rounds that set alight houses in the neighborhood, said the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) activist group.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev agreed Monday to support diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria and ensure a "legitimate" government there.

Syria was one of the top priority issues discussed during a 90-minute meeting between the two leaders in South Korea ahead of a nuclear summit, their final direct talks before Medvedev steps down and makes way for Vladimir Putin.