The Arab League said it agreed on Sunday to open contacts with Syria's opposition and to ask the United Nations to form a joint peacekeeping force to the unrest-swept country in moves swiftly rejected by Syria.

Arab diplomats "will open channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and offer full political and financial support, urging (the opposition) to unify its ranks," it said in a statement obtained by Agence France Presse.

Arab recognition of the opposition Syrian National Council is imminent, SNC member Ahmed Ramadan said in Qatar on Saturday, ahead of key talks in the Egyptian capital on the crisis.

"We have confirmations of an Arab recognition (of the SNC) that will soon take place, though not necessarily on Sunday," when the Arab League holds a ministerial meeting on Syria in Cairo, Ahmed Ramadan told AFP.

Russia on Friday accused the West of being an "accomplice" to the violence in Syria and said the country's opposition bore full responsibility for ending the ongoing violence.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Syrian President Bashar Assad's promise to stage a new constitutional referendum meant that it was now up to the armed resistance movement to take the next step.

China announced Friday it was sending an envoy to Iran, as tensions mount over the Islamic republic's atomic program and speculation Israel may launch a military strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

Israel and much of the international community believe that Iran's nuclear enrichment program masks a covert weapons drive -- a charge Tehran denies -- while China, a key ally and top trading partner, opposes sanctions.

The international community cannot afford to watch the "massacre" taking place in Syria without acting, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday during a visit to Washington.

Davutoglu is urging an international conference to resolve violence that erupted when demonstrators began demanding last spring Syrian President Bashar Assad be removed from office.

Russia must confront "the reality" of the deadly crackdown in Syria, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Thursday, after Moscow vetoed a U.N. resolution condemning the violence.

"My message to my Russian colleagues is they too need to recognize the reality of the situation on the ground" in Syria, said Ashton, who was making a two-day visit to Mexico.

Russia's U.N. ambassador on Tuesday slammed efforts to "poison" relations between his country and the Arab world after Russia's veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution on the Syria crisis.

Ambassador Vitaly Churkin made the comments as he strongly rejected Arab internet reports that he had threatened the prime minister of Qatar during talks at the United Nations last week on Syria.

Europe stepped up pressure on Syria on Tuesday as several nations recalled their ambassadors from Damascus and the EU considered new sanctions to cut the regime's access to cash.

France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands decided to bring back their envoys for consultations, joining Britain and Belgium to protest the regime's relentless opposition crackdown. The United States has closed its embassy.

A top Chinese official has warned of a "trust deficit" between Beijing and Washington and expressed hopes that a key visit to the United States next week by China's leader-in-waiting will strengthen ties.

Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai made the remarks in a speech published on the ministry's website on Tuesday, as Beijing and Washington lock horns over China's decision to veto a U.N. resolution on the bloody violence in Syria.

Russia's foreign minister said after Damascus talks on Tuesday that President Bashar al-Assad was "fully committed" to ending the bloodshed in Syria even as regime tanks pounded the central city of Homs for a fourth straight day.

Sergei Lavrov said he had had a "very useful" meeting with Assad and that Moscow was eager to work towards a solution based on an Arab League plan that it had previously criticized.