Syria has reached a "point of no return" in the regime's crackdown on opposition demonstrators, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday during his state visit to Britain.

"Unfortunately Syria has come to a point of no return," Gul said in a speech, adding that the whole region could be dragged into "turmoil and bloodshed" by the crisis.

China said Wednesday a U.N. human rights resolution condemning Syria's deadly eight-month crackdown on anti-government protestors was "counterproductive".

China was among 41 nations to abstain from voting on the resolution, which strongly condemns "continued grave and systematic human rights violations" by Syria that the United Nations estimates has left more than 3,500 dead.

The death toll from a fresh surge of violence in Syrian flashpoints has risen to 33, rights activists said Wednesday, adding that among the dead are six children and teenagers and five army defectors.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement that 28 civilians were killed on Tuesday by security force gunfire, in addition to the five defectors.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Monday that there is no plan for military intervention in Syria because the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's regime wants to proceed peacefully.

"The situation in Syria is different (from Libya). We have no intention of military intervention because the (opposition) Syrian National Council prefers to continue with peaceful efforts," Juppe told a press conference in Kuwait.

Three Mustaqbal bloc MPs and several Sunni Muslim clerics on Tuesday called on President Michel Suleiman, Premier Najib Miqati and Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji to shoulder their responsibilities concerning what they called “the attack against the Bekaa town of Arsal on the eve of the 68th anniversary of independence.”

“According to verified information, a plainclothes group comprising bearded members belonging to the ‘party of weapons’ (Hizbullah) entered the town of Arsal Monday night and tried to abduct a Syrian national belonging to the Qarqouz family,” said a statement issued after a meeting at MP Mohammed Kabbara’s residence in the northern city of Tripoli.

Arab regimes should not fear their peoples' aspirations for democracy and reform, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told a pro-democracy forum in Kuwait on Tuesday.

"A year after the start of the Arab Spring ... states gathering here should show they do not fear the aspirations of their peoples and civil society," Juppe told the opening session of the eighth Forum for the Future.

A key U.N. General Assembly committee on Tuesday condemned the Syrian government's deadly crackdown on protests, stepping up international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, as a rights group said 13 people were shot dead by regime forces.

A resolution passed by 122 votes to 13 with 41 abstentions at the U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee. Syria's U.N. envoy accused the European backers of the resolution -- Britain, France and Germany -- of "inciting civil war."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday called on his former ally Syrian leader Bashar Assad to step down.

"Quit power before more blood is shed ... for the peace of your people, your region and your country," Erdogan said in parliament.

The opposition Syrian National Council said Tuesday it is organizing a conference with the Arab League to prepare for a "transitional period" after the fall of President Bashar Assad's regime.

Assad is under mounting pressure from Syria's neighbors to step down over his regime's eight-month crackdown on protests that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,500 people since mid-March.

Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday that one of its citizens has been killed in the restive Syrian city of Homs, demanding an explanation from Damascus for what it called a "sinful attack."

In a statement issued by the kingdom's official SPA news agency, a Saudi embassy official in the Syrian capital said Hussein bin Bandar bin Khalaf al-Anzi died early Monday while visiting family in Homs.