Damascus said Wednesday that the Turkish president did not achieve his "goals" during yesterday's summit with Iran and Russia, referring to Ankara's efforts to rally support for a military operation in northern Syria.

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi hosted his Russian and Turkish counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Tuesday as part of the "Astana Peace Process" ostensibly aimed at ending Syria's 11-year conflict.

Iran and Russia support the Damascus government and Turkey supports rebel forces against the regime in the long-running war.

A truce has brought respite to Yemen after seven years of devastating war, but the blockage of roads remains a "major" humanitarian concern, a UN official has warned.

Yemen's conflict pitting the Saudi-backed government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels has killed hundreds of thousands since 2015 and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

A UN-brokered truce that took effect in early April has provided a rare respite from violence for much of the country and alleviated some of the suffering.

Eight civilians including two children were killed and 23 wounded in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region on Wednesday, when artillery shells hit a park in an attack local officials blamed on Turkey.

Mushir Bashir, the head of Zakho region, said the victims were mainly "Arab Iraqi tourists, mostly from central and southern Iraq", and blamed forces from across the border.

"Turkey hit the village twice today," Bashir told AFP.

Bashir, speaking to a local broadcaster, said that "Turkish artillery fire on the tourist region of Parakh killed eight people and injured 23".

Tehran gave assurances Wednesday that its nuclear policy was unchanged and that it still adhered to a fatwa banning weapons of mass destruction, after an Iranian official said the country was able to make atomic bombs.

It is the second time in the past 18 months that Iran has reiterated its opposition to nuclear weapons following comments by an official.

"In regard to the topic of weapons of mass destruction, we have the fatwa", or religious edict, by Iran's supreme leader that prohibits the manufacture of such weapons, said foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani.

Israel and Morocco strengthened military ties during meetings Tuesday between the Jewish state's army chief and Moroccan defence officials in the kingdom, amid tension with Rabat's rival Algeria.

Israeli army chief Aviv Kohavi, who arrived Monday, met with the Inspector General of the Royal Armed Forces Belkhir El Farouk, an Israeli army statement said.

He also met with Morocco's minister delegate in charge of defence administration, Abdellatif Loudiyi, and intelligence chief Brahim Hassani, it added.

Senior military figures from Libya's rival eastern and western power bases have held an unprecedented meeting in the capital Tripoli, calling Tuesday for a unified command over their troops.

Two rival governments are currently vying for power, one based in Tripoli, the other in the central city of Sirte.

General Abdelrazzak al-Nadhouri, second in command of forces loyal to eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, visited Tripoli on Monday and Tuesday to meet with his counterpart in the country's west, General Mohammad al-Haddad.

The first official match at the Lusail stadium that is to host this year's World Cup final will be held next month, Qatar's national federation said Tuesday.

Al Rayyan and Al Arabi will dispute a Qatar Stars League game in the 80,000 capacity stadium on August 11.

Lusail is the biggest of the eight stadiums built or refurbished for the World Cup and will host the final on December 18.

A spokesperson for Qatar's World Cup organisers said the match would be a "test event" and that an official inauguration would be held later.

Acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi, jailed as part of a crackdown on the country's filmmakers, for years defied a ban on his work to carry on making deeply human tales of Iran's social and cultural struggles that won a loyal following abroad.

The ingenuity he demonstrated in getting his films made and smuggled out of Iran to foreign distributors and film festivals became the stuff of legend.

Italy's Eni, US major Occidental, France's Total and the Algerian group Sonatrach signed a $4 billion oil and gas production-sharing contract Tuesday for the Berkine field in the country's southeast.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, hosting his Italian counterpart Mario Draghi on Monday with whom he sealed a clutch of deals, said the 25-year accord would provide Rome with "significant volumes of natural gas", as Europe seeks alternatives to Russian supplies.

The accord aims to produce one billion of oil equivalent barrels, Sonatrach said in a statement.

Award-winning dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, arrested last week in Tehran, must serve a six-year sentence previously handed to him in 2010, the judicial authority announced Tuesday.

Panahi, 62, has won a number of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for "Taxi" in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film "Three Faces" in 2018.