Syria's opposition coalition is seeking to take the country's U.N. seat from President Bashar Assad's government, its new U.S. representative said Wednesday.

Syrian National Council leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib has also received an invitation from the U.S. government to visit Washington and could seek meetings with top U.N. officials, coalition envoy Najib Ghadbian told Agence France Presse.

France is aiming to have the United Nations take over peacekeeping operations in Mali by April, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Wednesday.

Fabius told journalists France was working to have the current African-led mission put under the umbrella of the United Nations and confirmed France was planning to begin drawing back its troops in March.

Russia said on Wednesday it hoped to see "serious progress" at this month's talks in Kazakhstan between world powers and Iran over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the two sides had made no progress since the last round of top-level negotiations were held in Moscow at the end of June 2012.

The U.N. Security Council will take "very firm and strong" action against any nuclear test by North Korea, the council president said Tuesday.

Kim Sook, South Korea's U.N. envoy, said the test appeared "imminent" and any blast would be "a dangerous attempt to undermine the authority and credibility of the Security Council."

Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Muqdad begins a four-day visit to China on Monday, Beijing's foreign ministry said, after a handful of visits by high-level envoys in recent months.

Syria's opposition offered this week to hold talks with the Damascus government over the country's bloody conflict, now almost two years long.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday he wants to keep in regular contact with Syria's opposition after holding his first direct talks with the coalition's leader, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, Russian news agencies reported.

"I reminded Khatib that after the creation of the coalition and the appointment of their leader, we immediately demonstrated our interest in maintaining regular contact," Lavrov said after the meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Iran intends to install more modern equipment at Natanz, one of its main nuclear sites, according to a document seen by Agence France Presse on Thursday.

The U.N. atomic agency document said that Iran informed it in a letter dated January 23 that "centrifuge machines type IR2m will be used in Unit A-22" at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz.

The worsening Syrian war is "breaking up" the country while the international community watches, peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

Diplomats inside a closed briefing by Brahimi said he had "no progress" to report in his efforts to establish talks on a political transition in the country where 22 months of conflict have left more than 60,000 dead.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday strongly condemned the "heinous" attack and hostage-taking at an Algerian gas complex by al-Qaida linked militants.

A statement agreed by the 15-member council stressed the need to bring the al-Qaida linked attackers and their backers to justice.

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.