U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is undertaking "a range of steps short of war" that it hopes will prevent an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, The New York Times reported Monday.

The measures are designed to force Tehran to negotiate more seriously over its nuclear program and offer Israeli officials a credible alternative to a military strike on the Islamic state, the paper said.

Arab monarchies in the Gulf on Sunday lambasted Syria's regime for deploying heavy weapons against civilians while ordering Iran not to interfere in their internal affairs.

The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council at a meeting in Jeddah also urged the international community to "assume their responsibilities and take measures to protect civilians" in Syria, where according to a watchdog more than 26,000 people have been killed in a revolt that erupted in March 2011.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi made no mention of resuming ties with Iran during a recent visit to Tehran, his spokesman Yassir Ali said on Sunday, denying statements by Iranian officials.

"The meeting between President Mohamed Morsi and his Iranian counterpart (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad did not broach the subject of boosting the level of representation or of opening an embassy," said Ali, quoted by the state-owned daily Al-Ahram.

North Korea's ceremonial head of state has vowed to strengthen ties with Iran and reaffirmed a shared hostility towards the United States during a meeting with Iran's leader, state media said Sunday.

Kim Young-Nam, attending a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran, met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday to clarify Pyongyang's "firm stand" to boost ties with Iran, the North's KCNA said.

The world is failing to draw a "clear red line" for Iran over its nuclear program, Israel's prime minister said on Sunday after a new U.N. report found Tehran had doubled its capacity at a nuclear site.

"I think that we should speak the truth -- the international community is not drawing a clear red line for Iran," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.

At least 19 people have been killed in Iran's south after the bus they were travelling on struck a rock and flipped over, the state news agency said Sunday.

IRNA said the accident took place some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the southern Iranian city of Shiraz.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to rally divided groups of Palestinians together to "free their land," according to his official website on Friday.

"All Palestinian groups should be united, because then they will have more chance of freeing their land," Ahmadinejad told Abbas, who was making his first visit to Tehran to participate in a two-day Non-Aligned Movement summit.

The United States and Israel are responsible for the conflict scorching Syria by "flooding weapons" to rebels there, the supreme leader of Iran -- the main ally of Syria's regime -- said on Friday, according to his official website.

"The main and behind-the-scenes operators behind the painful issues in Syria are America and the Zionist regime," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a meeting with Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran.

Iran on Friday rejected allegations in a new International Atomic Energy Agency report that it was frustrating U.N. inspection of a suspect military site by apparently scrubbing it clean.

"These statements have no technical basis. Anyone who has expertise in this area knows that these statements are mere pretexts and that one cannot clean a site" of nuclear work, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told the ISNA news agency.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat mocked March 8 majority leaders for needing anti-depressant pills after U.N. Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman met with Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“What was the impact of Sayyed Khamenei’s meeting of Feltman on some March 8 members?” Jumblat wondered in remarks published in An Nahar daily on Friday.