U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday urged Russia to support a "strong statement" at the U.N. Security Council over Syria's crackdown on protests, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

In her talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Clinton expressed "our interest in seeing the Security Council go on record with a strong statement on Syria," a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity.

The United States on Monday called for restraint in Yemen where activists and medics said at least 53 anti-regime protesters have been killed in two days of violence.

The U.S. embassy said Washington hoped for a peaceful transition of power in Sanaa and hoped a Gulf Cooperation Council initiative would be signed within a week to transfer power from President Ali Abdullah Saleh to his deputy.

The Syrian regime's bloody crackdown on protestors is intensifying, the U.N. human rights office said Monday as it called for a global response to alleviate the "dire situation" in Syria.

"Despite the mounting international pressure in the past six months since the start of protests, ... the bloody crackdown in Syria has intensified," U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kang Kyung-wha said.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah met Monday embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to discuss deadly clashes that killed dozens in Sanaa, the official Saudi news agency said.

The meeting was the first since Saleh went to Saudi Arabia for treatment after being wounded in an attack on his Sanaa compound in June.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas officially told U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon that he would be submitting an application for membership in the global body on Friday, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.

Abbas and Ban also discussed international efforts to avoid a showdown over the bid in a meeting hours after the Palestinian leader's arrival in New York on Monday to make the bid for U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state.

Amnesty International said on Monday that the authorities in Yemen must stop killing anti-regime protesters immediately or risk civil war.

"The Yemeni authorities must immediately stop the killing of peaceful protesters by security forces," the London-based rights group said in a statement following reports that dozens of people have been shot dead in the capital Sanaa since Sunday.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas Monday vowed to submit a bid for U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state this week, amid warnings that sticking to the status quo could fuel "an explosion of violence."

Despite strong opposition from Israel and the United States, Abbas met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to tell him he would go ahead with the controversial move on Friday.

Members of the Palestinian parliament in exile met in Ramallah on Monday to show support for the campaign to seek full membership in the United Nations, a senior official said.

Some 50 members of the Palestinian National Council, which has 669 seats and represents Palestinians worldwide, met at al-Amari refugee camp.

Israel said on Monday it was withdrawing its police representative from Turkey and ending bilateral cooperation between their forces as the diplomatic crisis between the two former allies deepened.

"Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch has ordered the transfer to Bucharest of the Israel Police representative in Ankara," ministry spokesman Tal Volovich told Agence France Presse.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe Monday warned of the risk of an "explosion of violence" if the Palestinian situation is not resolved, saying the status quo was "neither acceptable nor tenable."

"The relaunch of the peace process is needed," Juppe told an audience at a think-tank in New York, amid frantic diplomatic efforts to stop the Palestinians seeking U.N. recognition of their statehood.