A planned visit to Damascus Wednesday by Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi in which he had been due to press the bloc's calls for reform has been postponed, diplomatic sources said.

"The visit has been put off to an undetermined date at Syria's request and a new meeting will be arranged soon," one diplomatic source told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

Russia disapproves of the European Union oil embargo imposed on Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday, the Interfax news agency reported.

"We have always said that unilateral sanctions will do no good. This destroys a partnership approach to any crisis," Lavrov was quoted as telling journalists at a regional summit in Dushanbe.

Fourteen people were killed on Friday in demonstrations in several Syrian cities that took place under the banner of “Death Rather than Humiliation.”

Local Coordination Committees (LCC) announced via internet sites that seven people were shot dead by Syrian security forces in the region of Reef Damascus and three were killed in the province of Deir al-Zour.

The United States said Tuesday that "pro-government thugs" in Syria made a "feeble attempt" to draw world attention away from protests when they filmed the U.S. ambassador observing a sit-in.

A video posted Monday by the U.S. blog The Cable shows Ambassador Robert Ford being harassed by a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad's regime who tried to wrap him in a poster of the Syrian leader.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime on Tuesday to stop its violent crackdown on protesters and release those arrested.

Ashton "expresses her continued deep concern about the violence perpetrated by the Syrian regime against peaceful demonstrators, human rights activists, and the Syrian people at large," her spokesman said in a statement.

Iran rejected Monday as "baseless" new EU sanctions targeting the al-Quds wing of the elite Revolutionary Guards which the European Union accuses of aiding the Syrian crackdown on protesters.

"We deny having any role in the internal affairs of that country (Syria)," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said according to a statement received by Agence France Presse.

Syria on Sunday rejected an Arab League statement demanding an end to the bloodshed in the country as the organization’s chief waited for a green light to travel to Damascus.

In a diplomatic note to the organization’s secretariat seen by Agence France Presse, Syria said the statement amounted to "a clear violation ... of the principles of the Arab League charter and of the foundations of joint Arab action."

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Saturday were to warn Syria they will no longer remain silent on its deadly crackdown on dissent, an Arab diplomat said.

The meeting, being held in the absence of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, was to move first to re-admit Libya in the presence of the rebel government's Prime Minister Mahmud Jibril, who was in Cairo.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday the Syrian people "have the right to democracy too" following a meeting with a leader of the Libyan rebel movement that toppled Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

"Syrians have the right to democracy too, and they are not condemned to being suppressed by a regime that does not understand we are living in a new century," Sarkozy said, while nevertheless ruling out military intervention.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday brushed aside Western calls for his ouster as "worthless," saying they come from "countries that are committing massacres," in an interview with state television.

"While withholding comment, we tell them that their words are worthless," Assad said.