Syria, isolated over its deadly protest crackdown, hopes to cash in on support from neighbors Iraq and Lebanon to counter Arab sanctions that threaten to choke its economy.

"We know how to manage when the going gets rough, because we have been facing sanctions for years," a Syrian official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

The U.N.'s Yemen envoy said on Tuesday a Gulf sponsored power-transfer deal aimed at ending months of political deadlock has been approved both by the opposition and by President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"All the parties have agreed to implement the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative," Jamal Benomar told reporters in the capital Sanaa.

A key U.N. General Assembly committee on Tuesday condemned the Syrian government's deadly crackdown on protests, stepping up international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, as a rights group said 13 people were shot dead by regime forces.

A resolution passed by 122 votes to 13 with 41 abstentions at the U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee. Syria's U.N. envoy accused the European backers of the resolution -- Britain, France and Germany -- of "inciting civil war."

Osama Juili, who commands the hilltown fighters who captured Moammar Gadhafi's most prominent son at the weekend, is set to be named defense minister, sources in Libya's interim government said Tuesday.

And the post of foreign minister is to be handed to Libya's ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, according to the sources in the National Transitional Council.

The opposition Syrian National Council said Tuesday it is organizing a conference with the Arab League to prepare for a "transitional period" after the fall of President Bashar Assad's regime.

Assad is under mounting pressure from Syria's neighbors to step down over his regime's eight-month crackdown on protests that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,500 people since mid-March.

Thousands of protesters swarmed Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday to demand an end to military rule, heightening tension after days of deadly clashes that threaten to derail next week's legislative polls.

The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) began crisis talks with a number of political forces in a bid to defuse the crisis, state media reported.

European nations on Monday condemned "terrible atrocities" in Syria as they formally launched a new bid to get a U.N. resolution passed condemning the deadly crackdown on opposition protests.

The U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee will vote Tuesday on the resolution which the Damascus government's U.N. envoy said was proof that the European nations suffer from "Syria-phobia".

The U.N. General Assembly on Monday passed an annual resolution condemning alleged human rights abuses in Iran with a record number of votes in support.

The assembly also passed resolutions condemning human rights in North Korea and Myanmar. All received record high backing.

The United States is to unveil new sanctions against Iran Monday targeting its financial, oil and petro-chemical sectors, according to briefings by U.S. officials to several American news outlets.

The reported sanctions aim to up the pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program after a report by the U.N. atomic energy watchdog strongly suggesting Iran was researching nuclear weapons.

The President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Judge Sir David Baragwanath, will be visiting Lebanon this week for the first time, the U.N.-backed court said Monday in a statement.

Baragwanath will be accompanied by the Vice-President of the Tribunal, Judge Ralph Riachy, the STL said.