The Syrian plane intercepted by Turkey this week on a flight from Moscow was carrying a legal cargo of radar equipment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

"This cargo is electrical technical equipment for radar stations, this is dual-purpose equipment but is not forbidden by any international conventions," Lavrov said in the Russian government's first public remarks about the nature of the cargo.

Turkey scrambled a fighter jet on Friday after a Syrian helicopter shelled the Syrian town of Azmarin near their common border, an official told Agence France Presse.

"The fighter jet took off from Diyarbakir base in the southeast after (Syrian) regime forces sent a helicopter to shell Azmarin which was seized by rebel forces," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Saudi King Abdullah held talks on Friday with international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on ways to end the bloodletting in Syria, the official SPA news agency reported.

The talks held in the Red Sea city of Jeddah centered on "how to stop all the violence, bloodshed... and violations of human rights," in Syria, the agency said.

A meeting next week of the Syrian National Council to admit new anti-regime factions into the main opposition bloc has been postponed until early November, an SNC official said on Friday.

The delay comes after the umbrella organization was flooded by requests from groups wanting to join it, SNC official Anas al-Abdi told Agence France Presse, adding that the meeting will now take place in early November instead of on October 17.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani on Friday called on all lawmakers to “choose an electoral law that does not allow any party to impose its control over a certain region,” pleading to God to “destroy those who are destroying the homes of the Syrians.”

“We want a law that would ensure proper representation for the Lebanese, and let the slogan of the sought electoral law be 'proper elections for a proper representation', rather than for domination and extending the influence of a certain party. This is an advice that we give to our lawmakers,” said Qabbani.

The U.N. refugee agency said Friday it was ready for the Syrian winter but the real problem was helping victims of the fighting within Syria itself.

"We are at a very great state of preparedness ... we can take this hugely seriously," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office denied a Friday report that he had offered to quit the occupied Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria in U.S.-mediated negotiations last year.

According to Yediot Aharonot daily which broke the story, talks fizzled out without any agreement as domestic protests that erupted in mid-March 2011 against Syrian President Bashar Assad's rule spiraled into civil war.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Friday he has hastily scheduled a visit to NATO partner Turkey in a bid to ease rising tensions with Syria.

Westerwelle, who is on a trip to China, said in a statement he would hold talks Saturday with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul on "the situation in Syria and on the Turkish-Syrian border".

The Syrian plane intercepted by Turkey on a flight from Moscow was carrying Russian radar parts for Syrian missile defense systems but not weapons, a Russian newspaper report said Friday.

The plane was loaded with 12 boxes containing parts for radars used in the Syrian army's missile defence systems, Kommersant quoted sources in the arms export industry as saying, denying accusations by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the cargo included ammunition.

The Syrian army deployed advanced surface-to-air missiles along the northern border district of Akkar, Ad Diyar newspaper reported on Friday.

According to the report, the missiles can shoot down advanced military warplanes.