Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he proposed, to the U.S. and Russia, the setting up of a no-fly zone in northern Syria, after Ankara-backed fighters pushed the Islamic State group from the border area. 

The U.N. Syria envoy on Thursday criticized Damascus' "strategy" of forced evacuation from Daraya following a brutal four-year government siege, warning that other besieged towns could follow. 

President Vladimir Putin will visit Japan in December as Moscow and Tokyo strive to ease old tensions over four disputed islands, the Kremlin said Tuesday.

The United Nations Syria envoy urged warring parties to state by Sunday whether they will commit to a 48-hour humanitarian ceasefire in the embattled city of Aleppo. 

A U.N. investigation has established that President Bashar Assad's forces carried out at least two chemical attacks in Syria and that Islamic State jihadists used mustard gas as a weapon, according to a report seen by Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

The panel was able to identify the perpetrators of three chemical attacks carried out in 2014 and 2015, but was unable to draw conclusions in the other six cases that it has been investigating over the past year.

Turkish tanks and hundreds of opposition fighters thrust deep inside Syrian territory Wednesday in a lightning operation that within hours ousted Islamic State jihadists from a key Syrian border town.

The air and ground offensive -- the most ambitious launched by Ankara in the Syria conflict -- made rapid progress towards Jarabulus with rebel fighters already proclaiming victory by the late afternoon just 14 hours after it started.

A yearlong investigation to determine who is behind deadly chemical attacks in Syria takes center stage at the United Nations this week when the panel presents its much-awaited findings.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) set up by the U.N. Security Council has been collecting evidence in nine cases of alleged noxious gas attacks on Syrian villages in 2014 and 2015.

The Pentagon warned the Syrian regime Monday it is prepared to shoot down planes threatening U.S.-led coalition forces in northern Syria, but stopped short of declaring a no-fly zone.

U.S. military officials reacted furiously last week after jets from the regime of President Bashar Assad targeted Kurdish forces and coalition advisers fighting Islamic State jihadists around the northeastern city of Hasakeh.

Iran said Monday that Russian raids on jihadists in Syria from one of its airbases had ended for now, after accusing Moscow of "showing off" when it revealed the bombing runs.

"It was a specific, authorized mission and it's over for now. They conducted it and they are gone now," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told reporters in Tehran.

Thirteen sick children were among 18 people evacuated by aid workers from the besieged Syrian town of Madaya on Friday, a doctor that was treating them told AFP.