Syrian troops shelled Khaldiyeh district in the flashpoint city of Homs early Monday after a night of nationwide protests against the regime, activists and monitors said.

Khaldiyeh, targeted in a week-long campaign to flush out regime opponents, was hit by mortar rounds that set alight houses in the neighborhood, said the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) activist group.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev agreed Monday to support diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria and ensure a "legitimate" government there.

Syria was one of the top priority issues discussed during a 90-minute meeting between the two leaders in South Korea ahead of a nuclear summit, their final direct talks before Medvedev steps down and makes way for Vladimir Putin.

Turkey closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday because of deteriorating security conditions in Syria, a Turkish diplomatic source said.

"Activities at the Turkish embassy have been suspended from this morning," the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that all diplomatic personnel have left the Syrian capital.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood will share power and respect democracy if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, its leader said on Sunday.

"The regime is trying to show that the Muslim brotherhood are trying to control Syria alone," Mohammad Riad al-Shaqfa told a news conference in Istanbul in remarks translated into English.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Sunday that Kofi Annan represented the last chance for avoiding a civil war in Syria and offered the U.N.-Arab League envoy Moscow's full support.

Medvedev's stark message to Moscow's traditional ally came only hours after U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans to send "non-lethal" aid to the Syrian rebels and new waves of violence swept the battle-scarred country.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's Middle East envoy was in Algiers on Sunday for consultations on the deadly year-old crisis in Syria, a Russian diplomat said.

Mikhail Bogdanov, who arrived in the Algerian capital on Saturday, was holding talks with Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, the APS news agency reported.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, will attend this week's Arab summit in Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's office said.

"President al-Bashir told President Talabani that he will head his country's delegation to attend the next Arab summit in Baghdad this week," the presidency's website said after a phone call between the two leaders.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed Sunday on the need to send "non-lethal" aid to Syrian rebels, including communications equipment, a U.S. official said.

The two leaders agreed that a "Friends of Syria" group meeting on April 1 should seek to provide such aid and also medical supplies, as they met in South Korea on the eve of a nuclear security summit, said U.S. deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

Iraq's fugitive vice president on Sunday called for an urgent neutral inquiry into the death of his bodyguard, who was allegedly tortured while in custody.

Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni the authorities have accused of running death squads, said his lawyers had been restricted access to the investigation against him and that the "situation in Iraq has become intolerable."

The Arab League, which is holding its annual summit in Iraq this week, will not call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign, the group's secretary general said in comments published on Sunday.

Nabil al-Arabi told pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat Assad's response to proposals by international envoy Kofi Annan to end the bloodshed in Syria was "insufficient," and said he planned to submit a report on the crisis to summit leaders.