United States President Barack Obama is going to Congress on Tuesday with fresh hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough that would allow Syria’s government to avert U.S. missile strikes if it surrenders its chemical weapons arsenal.

France welcomed the nomination of Mali’s first government after months-long conflict with Islamists, and vowed to help its former colony improve domestic governance and boost security, the foreign ministry said Monday.

Iran “favourably welcomes” a Russian plan to head off threatened US strikes on Syria by securing a deal to destroy the regime’s chemical weapons, the foreign ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday. Marzieh Afgham told a media conference in Tehran that the proposal should include the destruction of chemical