Syrian President Bashar al-Assad held "positive" talks with international peace envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday, state television reported as pressures increased on the regime after Qatar suggested sending troops to Syria.
"There was a positive atmosphere in the meeting between President Assad and Kofi Annan, envoy of the UN secretary general," the television said.
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday that it was time to send Arab and foreign troops to conflict-stricken Syria.
"The time has come to apply the proposal to send Arab and international troops to Syria," Sheikh Hamad said during a meeting of top diplomats that was to be joined by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later on Saturday.
The call came amid Western and Arab-led efforts to pile pressure on Assad's regime, whose crackdown on dissent has cost the lives of more than 8,500 people, according to human rights monitors.
Russia on Saturday said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear to the UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, Annan, that Moscow opposed "crude interference" from outside in Syrian internal affairs.
"A particular emphasis was placed on the inadmissibility of trampling on international legal norms, including through crude interference in Syria's internal affairs," the foreign ministry said after a meeting earlier between Lavrov and Annan in Cairo.
The meeting appeared to have taken place in Cairo before Annan headed to Syria for a meeting with Assad in Damascus and as Lavrov prepared to meet Arab foreign ministers in the Egyptian capital.
The foreign ministry statement said that in the meeting Lavrov confirmed Russian support of Annan's mission and expressed hope "it would be successfully realised in line with the mandate he has been given."
It said that Lavrov explained Russia's position on the crisis to Annan, saying it was based on seeking an "immediate end to violence in that country and a long term solution to a civil conflict through a wide national dialogue."
The ministry said Annan had said he was ready for "active cooperation" with Russia in solving the Syrian crisis.
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo last month agreed to ask the UN Security Council to issue a decision on the formation of a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping force to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire.
Russia and China in February vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime for the bloodshed in Syria and has shown little sign of shifting its policy since.
But Moscow is now coming under huge pressure from the West and Arab states to start exerting pressure on Assad's regime and support sanctions over the bloody crackdown.
"When we went to the Security Council, we did not get a resolution because of the Russian-Chinese veto which sent a wrong message to the Syrian regime," Sheikh Hamad said.
"Our patience and the patience of the world has run out," he said.
Early Saturday, Syrian troops heavily shelled the northwestern protest city of Idlib, a watchdog and an activist said.
"It's the heaviest bombardment since troop reinforcements were sent to Idlib earlier this week," the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
"It's the prelude to the launch of a ground offensive" in Idlib, whose province of the same name borders Turkey and where the rebel Free Syrian Army is entrenched.
Local activist Milad Fadl said: "The bombardment began at 5 am (0300 GMT). The shelling is very, very heavy.
"There are already three buildings that have collapsed in Thalathin Street in the west of the city," added Fadl, a member of the opposition Syrian Revolution General Commission
