U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday called on Turkey and Israel to repair their ties strained by a crisis over a deadly 2010 flotilla raid.

"The president underscored his interest in seeing a resolution of that issue between those two countries who are both allies of ours, and encouraged them to work towards that end," said a top White House advisor said.

Libya's interim leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil told U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday that fugitive former leader Moammar Gadhafi was still in the country, a U.S. official said.

"Chairman Jalil ... said that he believes that Gadhafi is still in Libya," said Derek Chollet, senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council, after the two leaders met at the United Nations.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday urged the Libyan people who have been fighting a bitter conflict against Moammar Gadhafi to "have the courage to forgive."

He told a meeting at the United Nations on Libya, attended by the country's transitional leaders, that Kadhafi would eventually be tried once the fighting had stopped.

Syrian security forces killed six civilians on Tuesday during a raid on anti-government protesters amid reports the United States expects the fall of President Bashar Assad and more violence after.

Meanwhile, an activist group inside Syria announced its backing for a recently named National Council of opposition figures, underscoring the need for unity in the campaign to overthrow the regime.

At least 25,000 people died in the uprising against Libya's strongman Moammar Gadhafi and 50,000 more were wounded, the country's interim leader told a U.N. summit Tuesday.

National Transitional Council chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil thanked the international community for their help in the months-long Libyan revolution, and while he told the summit that Gadhafi's regime members would face justice, he vowed that they would get "a fair trial."

The African Union has officially recognized Libya's National Transitional Council as the country's legitimate leadership, the group's chairman said Tuesday.

The announcement was transmitted by the office of South African President Jacob Zuma, six days after he hosted a meeting of the AU's special panel on Libya in Pretoria.

U.S. President Barack Obama hailed a "new chapter" for Libya Tuesday as the victorious rebels' red, black and green flag was hoisted at the United Nations ahead of its annual General Assembly.

Fugitive strongman Moammar Gadhafi issued an audio message dismissing the new government as a "charade" that would not outlive the NATO air and naval support that brought it to power.

Gunfire and shelling rocked Sanaa for the third straight day on Tuesday as the toll from the worst outbreak of violence in Yemen's capital in months spiraled to 60 dead with hundreds wounded.

The violence has hampered attempts by regional and international mediators to clinch a power transfer deal between political rivals, with the opposition saying it will not negotiate "while blood is flowing in Sanaa."

British Foreign Minister William Hague said the European Union was withholding its position on a looming Palestinian bid for U.N. membership in a bid to force a return to peace talks with Israel.

Ahead of talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in New York on Tuesday, Hague said the 27 EU nations were staying silent on how they would vote on Friday "in order to exert as much pressure on both sides to return to negotiations."

Coordinated bombings against provincial government offices in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi killed at least three people on Tuesday, while shootings in the capital left three policemen dead.

Three explosions -- a car bomb followed by two suicide attacks -- just minutes apart in Ramadi, 100 kilometers west of Baghdad, struck against Anbar provincial offices in the center of the city Tuesday afternoon.