Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea held talks on Saturday with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani during his ongoing trip to the Gulf state, announced the LF in a statement.

The talks focused on the situation in Lebanon, as well as the Syrian crisis and regional developments.

Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said Thursday the time had come to "study all options" in seeking a way out of the Syrian crisis.

"We have to study all options to save the Syrian people," Al-Thani said after meeting European Parliament head Martin Schulz.

Gulf foreign ministers will meet their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the Saudi capital next week to discuss developments in Syria, Kuwait's foreign minister said on Thursday.

"A meeting will be held with the Russian foreign minister and the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council on March 7 in Riyadh," Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah told Kuwaiti MPs.

France said on Monday that it wants to see the Syrian regime dragged before an international court of justice, as Qatar announced it was in favor of delivering arms to rebels battling the Syrian government.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, speaking during a break in talks between EU foreign ministers, said he would plead for legal action during a visit later Monday in Geneva, where he will attend the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Qatar urged the United Nations on Sunday to investigate Jewish settlement expansion in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, warning that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories was unacceptable.

"We must act quickly to stop the Judaization of Jerusalem," said Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, at the International Conference on Jerusalem in Doha.

A senior Saudi official on Saturday called on the Taliban to lay down their arms and renounce al-Qaida as preconditions for Saudi-mediated peace talks with the Afghan government.

"Saudi Arabia's conditions for mediation ... are that the Taliban lay down their weapons, engage in the political process and renounce al-Qaida," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Arab and western states are to launch a new bid at the United Nations this week to put pressure on Syria's President Bashar Assad, setting off new diplomatic hostilities between Assad's friends and foes.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have drawn up a resolution backing an Arab League plan to end the 11-month-old crackdown on protests which could be voted in the U.N. General Assembly this week.

The opposition Syrian National Council gathered in Qatar on Thursday to prepare for meetings with regional blocs on their government's lethal crackdown on protests, an SNC spokesman told Agence France Presse.

The SNC executive committee talks come "before two important meetings, one for the Gulf Cooperation Council and another for the Arab League," both of which are to take place on Sunday in Cairo, Mohammed Sarmini said.

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak arrived in the Qatari capital Doha Thursday after a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, where he secured pledges to ensure a stable supply of oil to the East Asian nation.

He is on a regional tour that will also include a stop in the United Arab Emirates.

Washington's chief envoy to Afghanistan met Taliban leaders in Qatar as part of U.S. efforts to bring the insurgents to the negotiating table, a senior Afghan official said on Wednesday.

The talks between the Taliban and Marc Grossman came in late January, after he met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, the official said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.