A report by United Nations inspectors probing an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria will "probably" be published on Monday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

"It will say that there was a chemical massacre... There will certainly be indications" of the origins of the attack, Fabius told French radio Thursday.

Russia has handed the United States a plan for the Syrian regime to hand over its chemical weapons in four stages, starting with Damascus becoming a member of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a report said Thursday.

The plan, first announced by Moscow this week, aims to avert threatened U.S. military action in retribution for a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus that the West says was perpetrated by the Syrian regime.

U.N. Security Council envoys from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States held talks Wednesday on the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, but no agreement was reached.

"They discussed elements that could go into a resolution" on Syria, said one U.N. diplomat, referring to the 45-minute meeting between the council's veto-wielding permanent members.

The United States has begun funneling weapons and technical equipment to rebel fighters in Syria, the Washington Post reported late Wednesday.

Citing U.S. and Syrian sources, the U.S. daily wrote that the CIA had begun delivering shipments of lethal aid in the past fortnight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that any U.S. military strike on Syria that circumvents the United Nations would undermine the global body and risk unleashing a wave of terror.

Such military action would "result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria's borders," Putin wrote in an op-ed piece appearing in the New York Times.

Russia on Thursday warned of a potential "man-made catastrophe" if North Korea restarts an aging plutonium reactor to boost its stockpile of nuclear weapons, after U.S. experts spotted steam rising from the Yongbyon facility.

The reactor, which was completed in 1986, is outdated and North Korea could suffer a major disaster if it is restarted, a Russian diplomatic source told the Interfax news agency.

A team of U.S. arms experts will accompany Secretary of State John Kerry to Geneva to meet with Russian counterparts for high-stakes talks on Syria's chemical weapons, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

Kerry is set to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov first on Thursday, but officials said the talks could stretch into Saturday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iran's new president for the first time this week, reportedly armed with an offer to supply missile systems and build a second nuclear power reactor that is likely to gladden Tehran and trouble the United States.

President Hasan Rowhani is set to meet Putin on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held in Kyrgyzstan on Friday, in the newly-elected centrist cleric's first meeting with a major world leader.

The Arab League will back a Russian plan to place Syria's chemical weapons under international supervision for eventual destruction, its secretary general said Tuesday.

Nabil al-Arabi told reporters in Cairo the League will "soon issue a statement announcing its support officially" for the Russian plan.

Russian officials have given the United States a plan to put Syria's chemical weapons arsenal under international control, ahead of a key meeting between Moscow and Washington's top diplomats in Geneva, reports said Wednesday.

"We handed over to the Americans a plan to place chemical weapons in Syria under international control. We expect to discuss it in Geneva," Russian news agencies quoted a source in the Russian delegation to the talks as saying.