President Bashar Assad called for dialogue between Syrians during a meeting on Saturday with international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, state television reported.

"The real problem in Syria is that of combining politics with the work being done on the ground," said Assad. "The political work continues, in particular by calling for dialogue between Syrians based on the aspirations of all Syrians.

Pope Benedict XVI has described the Arab Spring uprisings that have already removed four long-serving dictators as “positive” and appealed for a stop to arms imports to Syria.

“Arms imports must stop once and for all, because without arms imports, war cannot continue," he said in remarks to reporters on his plane to Beirut on Friday.

Syrian regime forces on Friday used fighter jets and helicopter gunships to pound the city and province of Aleppo, where fierce clashes raged around a military airport, monitors said.

Fighter jets bombarded the rebel-held towns of Al-Bab and Marea near Aleppo city, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that army forces and rebels battled around Minnigh military airport.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday urged a Syrian opposition delegation in Baghdad to learn from the experiences of Iraq, where a new political system was established during years of violence.

Maliki met with "a delegation of representatives of a number of Syrian opposition factions, headed by Dr. Mahmud Daham al-Muslat, the head of the Syrian National Council foreign relations office in the U.S. and Canada," a statement on the Iraqi premier's website said.

Syria is showing "contempt" towards the U.N. atomic watchdog by refusing to cooperate over a suspected undeclared reactor destroyed by Israel in 2007, the U.S. envoy to the agency said Friday.

President Bashar Assad's government "is using its brutal repression of the Syrian people as an excuse for not cooperating with the agency's investigation," Robert Wood told a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board.

A Syrian opposition chief will visit China from Sunday to hold talks on an end to the violence in the war-torn nation and a Syrian-led political transition, Beijing said.

Hassan Abdel Azim, general coordinator for the Syrian National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCC), will visit from September 16 to 20 and will meet Foreign Ministry officials, ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Friday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad was nearing its "inevitable" end despite violence threatening the entire region.

"Assad's regime is approaching its inevitable end," Erdogan said in comments translated into Russian at a conference in the Ukrainian Black Sea resort of Yalta.

Regime forces used fighter jets and helicopter gunships to pound the city and province of Aleppo on Friday, a day after violence killed at least 125 people across Syria, a watchdog said.

The fighter jets bombarded the rebel-held towns of Al-Bab and Marea near Aleppo city, while fierce battles raged around the military airport at Minnigh, also in Aleppo province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Pope Benedict XVI arrived on Friday for a three-day visit to Lebanon, to bring a message of peace for the Middle East.

His plane arrived at Beirut international airport to a massive official, media, and popular reception.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed on Thursday sanctions against Hizbullah's leadership in Lebanon, further exposing Hizbullah's active support to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as its role in terrorist activities.

“Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary general, is being designated today pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13582, for providing support to the Syrian government,” said the Treasury in a statement.