The war in Syria dominated the start of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday as Western leaders upped pressure on Russia to back away from its support for President Bashar Assad.

Russia dismissed rumored Western moves to establish a no-fly zone over Syria to help the rebel forces fighting Assad while host Prime Minister David Cameron pushed for progress on a peace conference.

A Taliban office, touted as a tool to help facilitate talks between the militants and the Afghan government, will open on Tuesday in Doha, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television reported.

Al-Jazeera cited anonymous sources for its Monday report and gave no further details but a Taliban spokesman in Kabul told Agence France Presse he was "unaware" of any such development.

Kuwait's main liberal opposition group said Monday it will participate in future elections as it accepts a ruling of the top court upholding the controversial amendment to the electoral law and dissolving parliament.

The National Democratic Alliance's decision came a day after the Islamist, nationalist and other liberal groups declared they will boycott any future polls based on the amendment confirmed by the constitutional court on Sunday as being in line with the constitution.

A Tunisian court on Monday charged two musicians and a journalist implicated in violence that erupted last week at the trial of a rapper who was controversially jailed for two years for insulting the police.

Aymen Feki and Moustapha Fakhfakh, and French-Tunisian journalist Hind Meddeb, who was not in court having fled the country on Sunday, are to be tried on October 7 for abusing public officials in the course of duty, and attacks on public morals, according to their lawyer.

Relatives of Yemenis being held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention center protested outside Washington's mission in Sanaa on Monday, calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to free the detainees.

"Freedom, freedom for the detainees!," chanted dozens of protesters, some dressed in orange -- the color of jumpsuits worn by Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

Iran's newly-elected president Hassan Rowhani declared on Monday that his incoming government will seek to improve ties with regional rival Saudi Arabia, tarnished over differences about Syria's civil war.

"The priority of my government is to strengthen relations with neighbors... the countries of the Persian Gulf and Arab ones that are of strategic importance and our brothers," said Rowhani.

Syrian President Bashar Assad warned Monday that European powers would "pay the price" if they sent weapons to rebel forces seeking to topple him.

"If the Europeans deliver weapons, then Europe's backyard will become terrorist, and Europe will pay the price for it," he was quoted as saying by German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Seif al-Islam, the son of slain Libyan dictator Moamar Gadhafi, and other former top regime officials will stand trial in August for crimes committed during the 2011 uprising, an aide to the prosecutor said on Monday.

Former spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi will be among those whose trial will begin in the first half of August, said Al-Seddik Al-Sur, a member of the prosecutor's office.

Hassan Rowhani Monday warned against foreign intervention in Syria, insisting that the strife-torn country's crisis should be resolved by its own people, in his first press conference since being elected Iran's new president.

"The Syrian crisis must be resolved by the people of Syria. We are against terrorism, civil war, and foreign intervention. Hopefully, with the help of all countries of the region and the world, peace and calm will return to Syria," the cleric said.

A Moroccan editor was handed a two month suspended prison sentence on Monday for defamation, after writing that an Islamist minister had organized a lavish, alcohol-fueled dinner during an official trip abroad.

The court in a suburb of Casablanca also fined Youssef Jajili, the director of Al-Aan magazine, 50,000 dirhams (4,500 euros), and ordered him to pay a symbolic dirham to the plaintiff, Minister of Industry and Trade Abdelkader Amara.