Japan's top nuclear envoy on Thursday urged the U.N. Security Council to act "sooner rather than later" in punishing North Korea for its long-range rocket launch in December.

"We agreed that the Security Council, on behalf of the entire international community, must take appropriate action," Shinsuke Sugiyama told reporters after talks in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart, Lim Sung-Nam.

The United States will on Thursday recognize the first Somali government in two decades, heralding a significant shift in ties since the deadly 1993 attack on U.S. helicopters over Mogadishu.

The beginning of a new chapter will come when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchanges diplomatic notes with visiting Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a top U.S. official said Wednesday.

President Barack Obama Wednesday demanded an assault weapons ban and universal background checks for gun buyers, stoking a generational clash with the firearms lobby after the Newtown school massacre.

"We can't put this off any longer. I will put everything I've got into this," Obama said, laying out the most sweeping gun control legislation in decades and daring Congress not to defy public outrage and block his plans.

Experts from the U.N.'s atomic watchdog will continue intensive talks in Tehran on Thursday aimed at seeking a way forward in resolving perennial concerns over Iran's nuclear program, media reported.

"Technical discussions" between the International Atomic Energy Agency and an Iranian team led by Tehran's IAEA representative Ali Asghar Soltanieh took place on Wednesday morning and "the two parties agreed to continue talks on Thursday," news agency ISNA reported.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said on Wednesday that comments on Israel attributed to him before he was elected, slammed as deeply offensive by the United States, were taken out of context.

"The president stressed they were taken from comments on the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and stressed the need to put the remarks in the right context," said a statement from the presidency issued after Morsi met U.S. Senator John McCain.

Only the people of Israel can decide who will represent their best interests, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday in remarks directed at U.S. President Barack Obama a week before a general election.

"I think everyone knows that the citizens of Israel are the only ones who can decide who will faithfully represent the vital interests of the state," he said.

U.S. nuclear officials have held talks with their counterparts in Myanmar, weeks after the former pariah nation agreed new safeguards allowing inspections of suspected atomic sites, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, was suspected of pursuing military and nuclear cooperation with Pyongyang during long years of junta rule that ended last year, prompting an easing of many international sanctions including by the U.S.

Israeli MPs on Wednesday accused U.S. President Barack Obama of meddling in Israel's upcoming elections over an opinion piece purporting to outline his view of Benjamin Netanyahu's "self-defeating" policies.

The piece, which was published by the prominent Bloomberg columnist Jeffery Goldberg, made headlines across the Israeli press and sparked angry reactions from MPs from the Israeli prime minister's ruling rightwing Likud party.

The United States on Tuesday condemned vitriolic anti-Semitic remarks attributed to Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi before he was elected to office, and urged him to make clear his views.

"The language that we've seen is deeply offensive," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, adding "we think that these comments should be repudiated, and they should be repudiated firmly."

Qatar cast doubt on Tuesday over the value of France's military intervention in Mali against Islamist rebels, arguing that force would not solve the problem and urging dialogue, as the U.S. threw its support behind the French military action.

"Of course we wish that this problem could be solved through dialogue, a political dialogue. I think that political dialogue is important and necessary. I don't think that power will solve the problem," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told reporters.