Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Saturday he welcomed a US-Russian peace initiative to end Syria's civil war but had no plans to resign, in an interview with an Argentine newspaper. "To resign would be to flee," he told the Clarin when asked if he would consider stepping aside as called for by US Secretary of State John Kerry. "I don't know if Kerry or anyone else has received the power of the Syrian people to talk in their name about who should go and who should stay. That will be determined by the Syrian people in the 2014 presidential elections," Assad said.

France said Friday it is opposed to having Iran attend a peace conference on Syria despite Damascus's ally Russia wanting Tehran's presence at the event expected in the first half of June. Foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said: "We do not want Iran. The Syrian crisis is contagious and affects the entire zone. Regional stability is at stake and we cannot see how a country (Iran) that threatens this stability can participate in this conference."

Russia's foreign minister said Friday he did not understand the international uproar created by Moscow's continuing weapons cooperation with regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "I do not understand why the media is trying to create a sensation out of this," said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "We have not hidden that we supply weapons to Syria under signed contracts, without violating any international agreements, or our own legislation."

A video distributed Thursday by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights shows a jihadist in the east of the country executing supporters of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The Britain-based watchdog did not specify whether the nine men killed were combatants, nor did it say when the footage was recorded. Later Thursday, the Britain-based group sent further footage showing what it described as the body of the reported executioner -- a man of Saudi origin identified as Kasura al-Jazrawi.