The Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that reports on Iran allegedly transferring its ballistic missiles to Tehran-backed Shiite groups in Iraq were "false and ridiculous.

Turkey has listed the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham armed Islamist group (formerly the Nusra Front, a terrorist group outlawed in Russia) as a terrorist organization, according to a decree signed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) was killed in a blast, which the authorities of the breakaway region, as well as Russia, largely considered to be a terrorist attack orchestrated by the Ukrainian authorities.

The assassination of Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), is aimed at undermining the peace process in Ukraine's Donbas region, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday, adding that such actions created a threat of destabilization of the situation in the conflict-torn area.

China opposes the use of chemical weapons in Syria by anyone and under any pretext, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Friday.

The opposition of South Sudan said that it initialed an agreement with the government to settle the conflict in the country.

A Dutch court prolonged the pre-trial detention of a man suspected of making threats against far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has organized a contest of cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammad, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service said in a statement on Thursday.