Top diplomats from Iran and six world powers geared up on Tuesday for a crucial round of talks aimed at forging a lasting and potentially historic agreement over Tehran's nuclear program.

A senior U.S. official said negotiators from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany were already in Vienna, preparing for the official start on Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in London on Thursday, a top U.S. official said, adding the "door remains open" for peace talks.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed Monday that the top U.S. diplomat would meet Abbas for the first time since peace negotiations with Israel collapsed last month.

Outgoing President Michel Suleiman condemned on Monday a new Israeli breach along Lebanon's southern border, considering it violates United Nations Security Council resolution 1701.

He called on the international community to take the necessary decision to prevent the Jewish state from further violating the Lebanese sovereignty and to press it to end its aggression.

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered Monday near the reputed scene of Jesus's last supper in Jerusalem demanding that Israel keep sovereignty over the site where Pope Francis will celebrate mass.

The pope will visit the Holy Land from May 24-26 and before returning to Rome is set to hold a mass in the site known as the Upper Room or Cenacle, on Mount Zion near the walls of the Old City.

The number of French Jews emigrating to Israel rose nearly four-fold in the first quarter of the year and could touch a record in 2014, a Jewish organization said Monday.

The Jewish Agency for Israel, a global body responsible for the immigration and absorption of Jews into Israel, said 1,407 people left France for Israel between January and March against 353 people a year earlier.

Israel is placing increasing numbers of arrested Palestinian children in solitary confinement, an international children's rights group said in a report issued Monday.

The report came just months after Israel's army, under international pressure to introduce reforms, agreed to test alternative treatment for children it detains in the West Bank.

Evidence suggests Iran has played a key role in supporting war-torn Sudan's weapons production and that Tehran has also been Khartoum’s second-biggest supplier of arms, a study said Monday.

Some of those imported arms, along with others from China, have reached rebel groups in Sudan as well as South Sudan, said the Small Arms Survey report based on more than two years of investigation.

The prime ministers of Japan and Israel compared notes Monday about living near countries with suspected illicit nuclear weapons programs.

Benjamin Netanyahu, on the second day of a five-day trip to Japan, said the international community should keep up pressure on Iran, which the West suspects of trying to develop atomic bombs.

Speaker Nabih Berri threatened on Monday to suspend the tripartite meetings held at al-Naqoura crossing between the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon and senior Lebanese and Israeli officials if the Jewish state continues violating the country's sovereignty.

“Those who are keen to safeguard Lebanon's sovereignty and independence and those who are in a hurry to get rid of the resistance should take into consideration first the Israeli violations,” Berri said in remarks published in As Safir newspaper.

The United Nations' atomic watchdog said Sunday it would hold talks with Iran to discuss its long-stalled probe into Tehran's alleged past efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

"IAEA and Iranian officials will meet on Monday in Vienna for further discussions within the Framework for Cooperation," International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor said.