Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday it was time to end the months-long Middle East war with the United States because Tehran was in a position of strength over Washington.

Talks between the decades-old foes remain on hold, with both sides in the war started by the U.S. and Israel in February locked in a stalemate.

The United States announced new sanctions Thursday against an alleged Hezbollah financing network, while highlighting the Lebanese armed group's close ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Hezbollah's legal designation as a terrorist organization has been amended to note that it operates in "service to the Iranian regime under the command of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," particularly the elite Quds Force, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Israel's foreign minister on Thursday slammed a demand by the UK government to halt a major settlement project in the occupied West Bank, after Israeli authorities opened bidding for more than 1,200 homes in the area.

Israelis began moving into the occupied West Bank settlement of Kadim on Thursday, the local settler council said, the last of four communities from which Israel withdrew more than two decades ago to be repopulated.

North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday, the South said, and Pyongyang mocked U.S. "servant" Seoul, after President Donald Trump suggested he would meet Kim Jong Un this year.

Barcelona have signed defender Joao Cancelo on a free transfer, the Spanish champions said Thursday.

Turkey on Thursday denied having any military presence at an air base in north Syria struck by Israel earlier this week, and vowed to continue "resolutely" supporting Syrian sovereignty.

Israel's defense minister on Thursday accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of dragging Turkey into "dangerous adventures in Syria", after Israel tacitly acknowledged a strike on a north Syria air base earlier in the week.

U.S. President Donald Trump pledged "economic warfare" against Iran and threatened any country that trades with it, prompting Iran to dismiss the plan on Thursday as a continuation of failed policies.

Syria's interior ministry said authorities took custody of a former general under deposed ruler Bashar al-Assad who was extradited from Lebanon on Wednesday and is accused of crimes including murder and torture.

"Today, Syrian authorities received from the Lebanese authorities the former officer in the defunct regime army, major general Adel Issa," a ministry statement said, after Syria issued an arrest warrant in absentia for him.