Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Iran later this month, the Kremlin said Friday, as the two countries back Bashar Assad in Syria and Moscow looks to step up business ties after the deal over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Putin -- who last visited Iran in 2007 -- will head to Tehran for a forum of gas-exporting countries on November 23 and is expected to hold talks with the Iranian leadership, the Kremlin's top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said.

A recording from Russian Airbus A321 which caught a sound before the plane disintegrated in midair will be sent abroad for analysis, Egypt's civil aviation minister was quoted as saying Friday.

It was not immediately clear which country would receive the copy of the black box recording to analyze one of the key clues of the investigation into the October 31 disaster, which killed all 224 on board.

U.S. and Russian military officials talk twice daily about air operations in Syria, as the two powers conduct separate bombing campaigns in the battered nation, a top U.S. general said Tuesday.

Four-star Air Force General Herbert Carlisle outlined how communications have vastly improved since the start of Russia's bombing campaign in Syria on September 30.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said countries will hold "enlarged" talks on the Syrian conflict soon, accusing some of trying to evade negotiations.

Speaking in the capital of Armenia at a press-conference, Lavrov said the list of players attempting to find common ground over the conflict that killed 250,000 people has grown since last month's unprecedented talks in Vienna.

Saint Petersburg on Sunday remembered the victims of the Sinai plane crash, with the bell of the iconic St. Isaac's Cathedral tolling 224 times in memory of each person killed.

At an emotional memorial service at one of the former imperial capital's most famous symbols, a chamber choir sang as several hundred mourners looked on.

Stranded in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, British tourist Joanna Baker is growing increasingly frustrated despite her luxurious surroundings.

Baker and her boyfriend were scheduled to fly out Friday after a week of holidays in the Red Sea town, but instead are stuck like thousands of fellow holidaymakers after Britain suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh over last week's crash of a Russian airliner.

Moscow and London ramped up efforts Sunday to bring home thousands of tourists stranded in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort following the crash of a Russian airliner in the Sinai Peninsula.

Britain and the United States, as well as international investigators, suspect a bomb exploded on board the Russian Airbus after it took off from the Red Sea resort last Saturday en route to Saint Petersburg, killing all 224 people on board.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday suspended Russian air traffic with Egypt and ordered assistance in bringing Russian nationals home as investigators probe why one of its passenger jets crashed in the Sinai.

The Russian president has ordered "the halting of flights with Egypt until we manage jointly with our Egyptian partners to establish the necessary level of provision of security for air travel," Peskov told journalists.

Russia sent anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria to back up its air campaign, the commander of the air force Viktor Bondarev said in an interview published Thursday.

"We sent there not just fighter planes, strike aircraft and helicopters but also anti-aircraft rocket systems," Bondarev told Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid daily.

When Oxana's sailor father left his home in Crimea's Black Sea port of Sevastopol in September, he just said he would be going to "the Mediterranean Sea".

But the family soon realized the true purpose of his mission -- Russia's military operation in Syria.