The U.N. Security Council has reached a tentative accord on a resolution to send a 300-strong ceasefire observer force to Syria which could be voted Saturday.

Russia's U.N. ambassador called for a "unanimous vote" on the text his country took a leading role in drawing up.

Russia, China and India on Friday jointly called all parties in the standoff over North Korea to show restraint after the reclusive state's failed rocket launch sparked global concern.

"We are convinced that the reaction to these challenges needs to be exclusively diplomatic and political," Lavrov said alongside his Chinese and Indian counterparts after a meeting in Moscow.

Lebanon can file a complaint with the U.N. Security Council against Syria over the killing of Lebanese cameramen Ali Shaaban, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.

The sources told al-Mustaqbal daily however that the problem lies in the lack of a political decision to file such a complaint.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she would tell Russia that the risk of civil war was rising in Syria, adding that she expected "rough" diplomacy ahead.

Clinton said she would raise the Syria crisis when she meets Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in talks among foreign ministers of the Group of Eight major economies starting in Washington on Wednesday.

Phalange Party leader Amine Gemayel expressed fear on Monday that the Syrian turmoil might spill into Lebanon over the sharp differences between parties on their stances from the regime.

“Lebanon should disassociate itself from the developments in Syria,” he told reporters.

Two days ahead of a U.N. deadline for Syria's military to halt fire, neither regime forces nor the rebels appeared ready on Sunday to compromise after a deadly day that saw nearly 130 people killed.

The main opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Council called for U.N. intervention after monitoring groups said 86 of those killed on Saturday were civilians.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said Friday that increased attacks by government forces on Syrian cities "violate" the U.N. Security Council's demand for an end to hostilities.

The U.N. secretary general strongly condemned new violence and indicated he believes President Bashar Assad is using an April 10 deadline to pull troops and heavy weapons away from cities as "an excuse" to step up killing.

At least 38 people, half of them civilians, were killed in violence across Syria on Thursday, monitors said, with fierce fighting between regime troops and insurgents in the rebel provinces of Idlib and Homs, as a spokesman for Kofi Annan said the U.N.-Arab League envoy expects both the Syrian government and the opposition to fully implement a ceasefire agreement by April 12.

The violence came despite the arrival in Damascus of a U.N. team dispatched by Annan to pave the way for a possible observer mission in Syria.

Syria's main opposition group on Thursday said a U.N. statement calling for all parties to end violence in Syria will simply give the regime more time to continue killing its own people.

"Such statements, issued amid continued killings, offer the regime the opportunity to push ahead with its repression in order to crush the revolt by the Syrian people," said Samir Nashar, member of the executive committee of the Syrian National Council.

U.N.-Arab League special envoy on Syria Kofi Annan is set to return to Damascus "very soon,” United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.

His announcement came a day after Western powers agreed to change a proposed U.N. Security Council statement on Syria after Russia refused to back any "ultimatum" to President Bashar Assad.