U.N. observers in Syria are ready to go to the central village of Treimsa, where 150 people were reported massacred, if a ceasefire is in place, mission chief Major General Robert Mood said on Friday.

"UNSMIS stands ready to go in and seek verification of the facts, if and when there is a credible ceasefire," Mood, the head of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, told a news conference in Damascus.

Syria's regime blames "bloodthirsty media" and "terrorist gangs" for a massacre in the village of Treimsa in the central province of Hama that rights activists say left at least 150 people dead, state-run SANA news agency said Friday.

"The bloodthirsty media in collaboration with gangs of armed terrorists massacred residents of Treimsa village ... to sway public opinion against Syria and its people and provoke international intervention on the eve of a U.N. Security Council meeting," SANA said.

U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan is set to hold talks on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Annan’s spokesman confirmed.

Ahmed Fawzi told Agence France Presse that the two will meet on Monday in Moscow.

Syria's main opposition alliance Friday urged the U.N. Security Council to pass a binding resolution against Damascus following reports by activists that regime forces massacred at least 150 villagers.

"To stop this bloody madness which threatens the entity of Syria, as well as peace and the security in the region and in the world, requires an urgent and sharp resolution of the Security Council under Chapter VII (of the U.N. Charter) which protects the Syrian people," the Syrian National Council said.

The U.S. said Friday that Syrian officials would be "held accountable" if they failed to safeguard the country's chemical weapons after a report suggested some were being moved out of storage.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that intelligence reports suggested some chemical weapons were on the move, but the reasons for the transfers were unclear.

Syrian troops with tanks and helicopters slaughtered more than 150 people in a central village, rights activists said Friday, casting a dark shadow over efforts to stop the bloodshed.

The Russian naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus, its only such facility outside the ex-USSR, is a symbol of Moscow's lingering influence in the Middle East even if its military significance is small.

Russia's unwillingness to abandon the facility has long been seen by analysts as one reason why it has defied Western calls to turn against the regime of President Bashar Assad despite the escalating conflict in Syria.

The head of the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) in Syria condemned on Thursday the kidnapping and killing of 17 of his troops by "armed terrorist groups," state news agency SANA reported.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Wednesday that the bodies of 13 PLA soldiers had been found after they were kidnapped days earlier while en route to Aleppo in northern Syria.

Russia rejects as unacceptable the text of a Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria and will use its veto if the draft is brought to a vote later Thursday, a deputy foreign minister said.

"If they decide this (a vote on Thursday) -- knowing that for us the text is unacceptable -- then we will not allow it to pass," Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the Interfax news agency.

President Michel Suleiman stated on Thursday that his visit to France is aimed at bolstering Lebanese-French ties and helping it maintain its stability amid the regional changes.

He said: “The visit is aimed at supporting and preserving Lebanon’s neutral position on Arab developments.”