The United States believes there may be a way to rekindle stalemated Middle East peace talks, but wants to hear ideas first from regional leaders, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday.

"I believe that there are possibilities," Kerry said after talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, adding he was an optimist at heart.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Security Council on Wednesday to overcome its paralysis and take meaningful action on Syria, while he slammed North Korea for its "reckless" nuclear test.

"It is essential for the Security Council to overcome the deadlock and find the unity that will make meaningful action possible," in Syria, Ban said in a speech at the Organization of American States in Washington.

Israeli troops on Wednesday opened fire at a man walking from Syrian-held territory towards the Israeli-annexed zone of the Golan Heights, an army spokeswoman said.

"Soldiers identified a suspect approaching the border fence in the southern Golan Heights," she told Agence France Presse.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem and opposition National Coalition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib will make separate visits to Moscow for talks in the coming weeks, a top Russian diplomat said Wednesday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the RIA Novosti news agency that Muallem would visit Russia by the end of February while Khatib would come in the next two or three weeks.

Jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham is emerging from the shadows of the larger rebel outfit al-Nusra Front as a key player in northern Syria, playing up its nationalist roots and more moderate form of Islam.

Fighters from the group, whose name means in Arabic the "Free Men of Syria", are mainly to be found on the battlefields in the northern provinces of Idlib, Aleppo and central Hama alongside some 30 other jihadist organizations.

Thousands of Bahraini Shiites took to the streets Wednesday on the eve of the second anniversary of their crushed uprising, as a national dialogue aimed at ending a political stalemate resumed.

Following a call by opposition groups, demonstrators marched in 12 villages and chanted anti-regime slogans, witnesses said, amid calls for a general strike and nationwide protests on Thursday and Friday to commemorate the uprising.

The number of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank grew by 4.7% in 2012, according to figures obtained by Agence France Presse Wednesday from a settler organization.

The settler population stood at 360,000 at beginning of January 2013 compared to 343,000 in January 2012, according to the Yesha Council, the largest organization of West Bank settlers.

Tunisia's ruling Ennahda party has called on supporters to rally Saturday and back its "legitimacy" even as the prime minister, who belongs to the Islamist party, scrambles to form a new government of technocrats.

"Supporters of Ennahda must defend their revolution and the interests of the people," Mohamed Akrout, an Ennahda deputy chief, said on in a video posted Wednesday on the party's Facebook page.

Former foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said Wednesday he has a neutral stance on Syria's 23-month conflict, as he broke his silence for the first time since leaving the country.

"I left Syria because the polarization in the country has reached a deadly and destructive stage... I left a battlefield, not a normal country, and I apologize to those who trusted my credibility and for leaving without prior notice," he said.

The Iranian dissident group MEK on Wednesday accused Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of ordering a deadly attack on its camp in Iraq and said the Iraqi government facilitated the assault.

The People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) said in a statement that the decision to carry out the attack was taken late January by Iran's national security council on Khamenei's orders.