Britain and France Wednesday said there could be no political transition in Syria with President Bashar Assad and urged Russia to stop backing its traditional ally.

The comments by British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius came after world powers agreed in Geneva on Saturday on a plan for transition in Syria.

France Friday hosts a third "Friends of Syria" meeting aiming to co-ordinate Western and Arab efforts to stop violence in the country, amid reports Russia is being asked to take President Bashar Assad in exile.

The Paris meeting follows one in Tunis in February and another in April in Istanbul that both called in vain for tougher action against the Assad regime.

Syrian troops pounded several districts of the central city of Homs on Wednesday and clashed with rebels as at least 48 people were killed in violence across the country, activists and a watchdog said.

Regime forces killed 12 people in Daraa, nine in the countryside around Damascus, eight in Idlib, seven in Aleppo, five in Deir Ezzor, three in Homs, two in Damscus, one in Latakia and one in Hama, the opposition Local Coordination Committees reported.

The independent Tunisian authority charged with reforming the media announced on Wednesday that it had shut down after failing to achieve its objective, accusing the Islamist-dominated government of censorship.

"The body does not see the point in continuing its work and announces that it has terminated its work," said Kamel Labidi, who heads the National Body for the Reform of Information and Communication (INRIC).

Syria's fractured opposition groups on Wednesday wound up talks in the Egyptian capital that descended into chaos and even fist fights as they tried to forge a common vision for a transition in their country.

More than 200 participants from 30 different movements as well as independent figures, civil society groups and activists had gathered in Cairo to form a unified front against President Bashar Assad's regime.

Libyans vote on Saturday for a constituent assembly, the first body elected since the ouster of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, tasked with steering the country through its critical transition.

"All fundamental questions have to be decided by this elected group of 200 people," Sami Zaptia, managing editor of Libya Herald, told Agence France Presse.

The bodies of the two pilots of a Turkish jet that was downed by Syria on June 22 have been recovered at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean sea, the Turkish army said Wednesday.

"The bodies (of the two pilots) have been recovered in seabed and work is underway to bring them to surface," the army command said on a statement posted on its website.

Russia is not discussing Bashar Assad with the United States, a deputy foreign minister said Wednesday after a report said the West was pushing Moscow to offer the Syrian president exile.

"The situation with the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad is not being discussed with the United States," Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.

A Yemeni police chief in the capital narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on Wednesday as explosives planted in his car blew up just minutes after he exited the vehicle, he told Agence France Presse.

Saleh al-Mustafa, police chief for Sanaa's western Mathbah neighborhood, said he suspects al-Qaida militants were behind the attack.

Syria's President Bashar Assad accused Turkey in an interview published Wednesday of giving logistical backing to Syrian "terrorists" and told Ankara to stop meddling in his country's affairs.

"Turkey's desire to interfere in Syria's internal affairs has put it in a position which unfortunately makes it a party to all the bloody activities" in Syria, he told the daily Cumhuriyet in an interview published Wednesday, the first part of which it published a day ago.