Syria has vowed to cooperate with U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan while combatting "terrorism," its term for the country's anti-regime revolt, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

"The Syrian government is determined to protect its citizens by disarming the terrorists and continues to search for a peaceful solution to the crisis by cooperating with special envoy Kofi Annan," it said in a letter addressed to the United Nations, carried by state news agency SANA.

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon in September to preach peace and unity for Christians in the Middle East, a senior religious figure said Friday a day after meeting with the pontiff.

"The pope will come to support Christians so that they are united," said Gregory III Laham, the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, adding that the visit would take place September 14-16, the I.Media religious news agency reported.

Turkey on Friday "strongly" urged thousands of Turkish nationals to leave Syria and said it was considering withdrawing its ambassador from the violence-wracked country.

"Developments in Syria pose serious security risks for our nationals," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "Therefore it is strongly recommended that Turkish nationals currently in Syria leave and return home."

Russia said Friday it was using its contacts with the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad to urge Damascus to fully cooperate with the mission of U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

Speaking ahead of a video conference Annan was to hold with the U.N. in New York later Friday on his mission to find a settlement to the crisis, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said all the U.N. Security Council members had a duty to support his efforts.

Thousands of anti-regime protesters called on Friday for foreign military intervention to bring down a Syrian government whose brutal crackdown on dissent monitors say has cost more than 9,100 lives.

The protests after Muslim weekly prayers were called by activists on their Facebook page, Syrian Revolution 2011, to demand "immediate military intervention by the Arabs and Muslims, followed by the rest of the world."

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen is expected to visit to Lebanon next week to hold talks with a number of high-ranking officials, including Bank of Lebanon Governor Riyad Salameh, reported An Nahar daily on Friday.

Concerned circles did not reveal the purposes of the visit, but it has been understood that the U.S. official will tackle the financial sanctions against Syria and Iran, and Lebanon’s commitment to them, added the daily.

Several hundred people including key figures in the opposition Syrian National Council rallied in Paris Thursday to mark the anniversary of Syria's revolt and denounce President Bashar al-Assad.

"Long live a free Syria!" the Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, told the crowd gathered outside Paris city hall. "The suffering, the horror that this people have been living through for a year is unsustainable."

Syrian security forces killed at least 32 people on Thursday as the bodies of 23 torture victims were found near the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria that security forces captured earlier this week, activists said.

"Twenty-three bodies with marks of extreme torture were found near Mazraat Wadi Khaled, west of the city of Idlib," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in a statement.

Hundreds of activists in a "Freedom Convoy" who tried to enter Syria from Turkey were stopped near the border on Thursday, as the uprising against the Damascus regime entered its second year.

Turkish police stopped hundreds of mostly Syrian activists as they approached a border crossing outside the city of Kilis, but they escorted a small delegation of organizers in two cars to the post.

More than 9,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed across Syria since the outbreak of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's regime one year ago, human rights monitors said on Thursday.

"A total of 9,113 people have been killed, including 6,645 civilians," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.