Israel on Saturday accused Syrian forces of trying to provoke conflict as the two sides rowed over responsibility for a border clash.

Tensions around Golan Heights ceasefire zone between the two rivals have escalated since Syrian forces fired across the U.N.-patrolled ceasefire line and hit an Israeli military vehicle on Tuesday.

Rwanda is key to ensuring peace in the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Friday as he toured the region to boost a new deal to end decades of violence.

A United Nations-brokered accord, signed in February by 11 regional countries after a bloody uprising by Congo's M23 rebels, seeks to quell a long-running conflict in mineral-rich eastern Congo, which neighbors Rwanda.

Two sets of talks on Wednesday aimed at easing tensions over Iran's nuclear program are not expected to produce any major breakthrough ahead of next month's elections in the Islamic republic.

In Vienna, the U.N. atomic agency, the IAEA, will press Iranian officials to grant access to sites, documents and scientists involved in Tehran's alleged efforts to develop atomic weapons.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati condemned on Tuesday Israel's use of Lebanese airspace to carry out airstrikes on Syria, telling the ambassadors of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members that Lebanon rejects being shoved into the Syrian crisis.

Miqati informed the ambassadors at a meeting at the Grand Serail that was also attended by U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly that the Lebanese Armed Forces were incapable of fully controlling activity on the porous border with Syria for lacking the appropriate equipment.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour denounced on Saturday Israeli violations of Lebanon's airspace, considering that they come in context of the continuous aggressive acts that violates the country's sovereignty.

“These violations will not change Israel's violent nature that we are used to,” Mansour said.

The EU's top diplomat Catherine Ashton will meet chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Istanbul on May 15 in a fresh effort to defuse international concern over Tehran's disputed nuclear drive.

Ashton's office said "the talks are a follow-up to the last round of negotiations held in Almaty" on April 5 and 6 that failed to produce an accord.

The U.N. Security Council called on African states Monday to strengthen their peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic as mounting chaos grips the country.

With daily attacks and rapes reported in the capital, Bangui, the 15-nation council called on the interim government to get a grip on security and for rebels who ousted President Francois Bozize to return to their barracks.

Morocco voiced its "satisfaction" on Thursday at the U.N. Security Council resolution renewing the mandate of the Western Sahara peacekeeping force, which dropped U.S. plans to task it with rights monitoring.

U.N. Resolution 2099, which extends the U.N. mission's mandate for one year, instead urged Morocco and Polisario Front rebels "to continue in their respective efforts to enhance the promotion and protection of human rights in Western Sahara and the Tindouf refugee camps" in Algeria.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously agreed to send a 12,600-member international force to Mali to take over from French and African troops battling Islamist guerrillas.

The United Nations is aiming for a July 1 start by the new force, but the 15-nation council will decide later whether the conflict has eased enough for the handover.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly welcomed on Monday the appointment of Tammam Salam as prime minister-designate, while condemning the recent violations along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

He said: “The Security Council has now on several occasions, reiterated the importance of respect for Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and the need for all concerned to respect Lebanon’s policy of dissociation and the Baabda Declaration,” he stressed.