Canada tightened the sanctions Friday on Syria, targeting President Bashar al-Assad's wife, mother, sister and sister-in-law a week after the European Union made a similar move.

Stepping up its sanctions as fighting raged after an embattled Assad said he had accepted a peace plan to put an end to a year of violence that has left over 9,000 dead, Canada said it sought a "Syria that respects the fundamental rights of all its people."

The United States hit Syria's defense minister and two other senior military figures with sanctions Friday, ramping pressure on Bashar al-Assad's regime as U.N. efforts failed to halt violence.

The Treasury Department announced measures against Dawoud Rajiha as well as the army's deputy chief of staff and the head of presidential security.

More than 15,000 people in Jordan, including opposition Islamists and trade unionists, held a peaceful sit-in near the border with Israel on Friday to mark Land Day.

Waving Jordanian and Palestinian flags, the demonstrators carried banners reading: "Freedom for Jerusalem and freedom for Palestine," and "Jerusalem, here we come," as they gathered in Kafrein, some 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border crossing and barely a kilometer and a half (a mile) from the frontier.

China said Friday that rebels fighting in Syria had to commit to talks and stop attacks they have been carrying out, mirroring demands from embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.

A peace plan put forward by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan includes a call for a full cease-fire, but Assad's condition that there be an express promise from the opposition to stop attacks could complicate Annan's attempts to bring an end to more than a year of violence that the U.N. says has killed more than 9,000 people.

Deadly clashes raged and anti-regime protesters rallied across Syria on Friday to denounce the Arab League’s inaction in the face of a bloody crackdown on dissent after the annual Arab Summit only urged dialogue to resolve the crisis, as U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan urged the regime to immediately implement a ceasefire.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 45 people across the country: nine in Daraa, 14 in Deir al-Zour, three in Aleppo, 12 in Homs, four in Idlib, two in Damascus and one in Hama.

Syrian activists called for mass protests on Friday to denounce Arab countries for "abandoning" them as Syrian forces shelled rebel bastions in the central city of Homs and launched assaults in northwestern Idlib province.

"The Muslims and the Arabs have abandoned us ... but God is with us ... and our determination will carry us to victory," said a statement posted on the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page, urging nationwide street demonstrations after the weekly Friday prayers.

Syria should heed the will of its people by implementing political reforms and allowing free elections, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on a visit to Tehran in remarks reported by Iranian media Friday.

"The Syrian regime should be receptive to the will of its people, who want elections and democracy," Erdogan said, according to an interview aired on Iranian state television late Thursday.

Iran will defend the regime of its regional ally Syria due to its anti-Israeli stance, supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the visiting Turkish prime minister on Thursday.

"Iran will defend Syria because of its support for the anti-Zionist regime resistance," Khamenei said as he received Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad, state television reported.

President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to a peace plan by international envoy Kofi Annan to end the crisis in Syria and vowed to make every effort to make it succeed, the state agency SANA said Thursday.

Assad, however, stressed the U.N.-Arab League envoy's plan would succeed only if "terrorist acts" backed by foreign powers stopped across the country.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to "immediately" implement the U.N. six-point plan to stop bloodshed in Syria.

"I urge President al-Assad to put commitments into immediate effect. There is no time to waste," Ban told a news conference in Kuwait.