Iraqi official: N. Korea wants to fly through Iraq to Syria NEW: At least 117 people are killed in Syria on Friday, an opposition group says In an interview, Syrian leader is critical of opposition supporters Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar Damascus, Syria (CNN) -- North Korea asked Iraq this week if it could fly a plane through Iraqi airspace to Syria, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told CNN on Friday. Al-Maliki rejected the request because there was suspicion that the plane would be carrying weapons, said adviser Ali al-Mousawi, without providing additional details. The prime minister talked by phone with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Friday afternoon, officials said. Biden asked Iraq for help in stopping weapons from reaching Syria, according to a statement released by his office. Biden stressed to the Iraqi prime minister "the need to prevent any state from taking advantage of Iraq's territory or airspace to send weapons to Syria." Al-Maliki "expressed the Iraqi government's discomfort with some informal U.S parties of stirring suspicions about Iraq's position toward Syrian crisis," and that Iraq has held a "firm position in rejecting any weapon supplies or violent activity over Iraq's territories or its airspaces," according to a release from his office. "Al-Maliki reiterated the position of the Iraqi government based on the need to find a peaceful political solution for the Syrian crisis and its rejection to supply ammunitions to any party involved in the Syrian conflicts," the release said. Opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule are concerned about the shuttling of arms to his government by entities such as Iran. Iraq borders Syria and Iran. Al-Assad magazine interview Earlier, Syria's besieged president slammed the rebels battling his government forces, but said the "door to dialogue is open." "Dialogue with the opposition is the only way out to address the crisis," al-Assad said in a magazine interview published Friday. That set the wheels in motion a standoff that morphed into a civil war in the country between the al-Assad government and a growing rebel movement. Al-Assad, who blames the violence on terror groups, told Egypt's Al-Ahram al-Arabi magazine that "armed men are engaged in terrorism against all of the state's institutions." Ultimately, they will not emerge victorious," he said. Before the Syrian conflict started last year, Saudi Arabia served only as a "mediator with the West that does not appreciate the axis of resistance against Zionism advocated by Syria," the president said. Here's a roundup of other developments in Syria's conflict: Seventeen people were stabbed to death after soldiers stormed the area, it said. The LCC said the 17 were among 117 people killed across Syria on Friday. Forty-eight deaths occurred in the Damascus area. Seventeen people were killed in Aleppo, and 15 each in Homs and Idlib provinces. Violence also raged in Daraa, Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, Latakia and Hama provinces. CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq reported from Baghdad and Nic Robertson reported from Damascus.