U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday blamed "obstruction" by the regime of President Bashar Assad for the breakdown in talks in Geneva between the sides in Syria's civil conflict.

"None of us are surprised that the talks have been hard, and that we are at a difficult moment, but we should all agree that the Assad regime's obstruction has made progress even tougher," Kerry said.

Libya's parliament has reached consensus on holding early elections, yielding to popular pressure after it had extended its mandate that ended on February 7, deputies said Sunday.

The agreement comes as the North African country on Monday prepares to mark three years since the start of the revolution that overthrew long-time strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Kuwaiti MPs are unlikely to vote on ratifying a Gulf security pact during the current legislative term, the parliament speaker said Sunday, amid concerns it would undermine constitutional freedoms.

Marzouk al-Ghanem told a press conference that a majority of MPs supporting and opposing the pact have called for delaying its ratification and that "no decision will be taken on it in the current parliamentary term" which closes at the end of June.

A bomb tore through a bus carrying South Korean sightseers near an Egyptian border crossing with Israel on Sunday, killing three tourists and their Egyptian driver, a senior official said.

It was the first attack on tourists since the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July sparked unrest and a spate of attacks across the country.

The United Arab Emirates have expelled eight Kuwaiti students from two universities for forming a union, collecting donations and holding unauthorised meetings, an higher education official said.

The expulsion is a rare move against students from a fellow Gulf country.

U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres visits Iran on Monday for talks with officials on the plight of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees, the UNHCR said in a statement.

The visit comes ahead of transition in Afghanistan, where a presidential election is due to take place in April and as U.S.-led NATO forces prepare to leave the country by the end of 2014.

Jihadists shot dead two people in a car they stopped at a roadblock near Roman ruins in Tunisia and two policemen who later sped to the scene, the interior ministry said Sunday.

The killings occurred on Saturday night in the Jendouba area of western Tunisia near Bulla Regia, the site of historic Roman ruins, it said in a statement.

Most of the Syrian opposition fighters in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk in southern Damascus have withdrawn, a Palestinian official told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

Anwar Abdel Hadi, an official with the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the pullout came after an agreement between the rebels and Palestinian factions in Yarmuk.

Gaza's ruling Hamas movement has ruled out the idea of international troops being stationed in a future Palestinian state under a peace deal with Israel.

"From time to time we hear people making offers during the negotiations, primarily about the idea of an international force following the retreat of the (Israeli) occupier," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement published on Saturday.

Firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of a powerful political movement and a major figure in the formation of post-Saddam Iraq, has announced his exit from politics two months before legislative polls.

"I announce my non-intervention in all political affairs and that there is no bloc that represents us from now on, nor any position inside or outside the government nor parliament," Sadr said in a written statement received by Agence France Presse on Sunday.