Russia will not approve the use of force against the Syrian regime at the United Nations, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday at a briefing in Moscow.

"We will not sanction the use of force at the United Nations Security Council," Lavrov said in televised remarks as he gave a briefing on Russia's proposal for an international conference on Syria.

Russia on Saturday pushed its proposal for an international conference on Syria to include Iran, despite skepticism from the United States.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was to give details on the plan for regional players to try to negotiate a strategy that would suit all Syrians at a briefing in Moscow at 1200 GMT.

Leaders of the exiled Syrian National Council met in Turkey on Saturday to pick a new leader after the resignation of Burhan Ghalioun last month to avert divisions in the opposition bloc.

The vote came as Western powers moved to slap sanctions on Damascus amid mounting anger over a massacre in a central village blamed on regime troops and fears of a full-fledged civil war in Syria.

Al-Jazeera television broadcast on Saturday a video of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims who were kidnapped in Syria on May 22.

They announced: “We are the guests of the Syrian rebels and we support the Syrian people.”

Negotiations over the release of the 11 kidnapped Lebanese pilgrims have achieved “great progress”, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

Hizbullah circles told the daily that there are “very positive signs that they may be released within 48 hours.”

The Syrian army killed at least 23 civilians in two protest cities on Saturday, a watchdog said, as an international outcry mounted over a massacre in a central village.

U.N. observers who visited the village of Al-Kubeir, near Hama, said they witnessed blood on the walls and "a strong stench of burnt flesh," prompting Western governments to launch a push for tough new sanctions against Damascus.

Britain, France and the United States will quickly draw up a U.N. Security Council resolution proposing sanctions against Syria over the worsening conflict, diplomats said Friday.

Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, the author of a fledgling peace plan on Syria, called Friday for "additional pressure" in the wake of a new massacre as he held talks in the United States.

Opening a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.N.-Arab League envoy said he would discuss "how we can put additional pressure on the government and the parties to get the plan implemented."

United Nations observers on Friday reached the Syrian village of Al-Kubeir where dozens of residents were massacred two days ago, activists told Agance France Press.

The monitors on Thursday were fired at by gunmen and forced to turn back as they tried to reach the village located in a farming region in the central province of Hama.

France backs U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's bid to bring key powers into a contact group on the Syria crisis, but it opposes bringing Iran into the group, the foreign ministry said Friday.

"We are favorable to any initiative that can help put into operation the Annan plan," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told reporters.