The Friends of Syria nations that support regime change meet in Morocco on Wednesday for the first time since the creation of a new opposition coalition seeking wider international recognition.

Arab and Western states will consider two key issues concerning the 21-month conflict -- the political transition in the event of President Bashar Assad's fall, and mobilizing vital humanitarian aid as winter sets in.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Sunday called on the Lebanese parties to distance themselves from the Syrian conflict, amid deadly Syria-linked clashes in the northern city of Tripoli.

“We must distance ourselves from the conflict in Syria and we don't wish to see it ruled by takfirist groups,” said Aoun during a meeting with a group of dentists who won the elections of the Lebanese Dental Association earlier in the day.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi hoped on Sunday that the United States and Russia could reconcile their views over Syria in order to facilitate a settlement of the crisis in the war-ravaged country.

"Talks between the United States and Russia along with the international envoy (Lakhdar Brahimi) continued in Geneva today," Arabi told a meeting of the Arab ministerial committee on Syria held in Doha.

Syria's rebel ambassador to France warned Sunday that the "passivity" of the international community was boosting the rise of Islamist extremists in his war-torn country.

Monzer Makhous, named last month as the Syrian opposition National Coalition's envoy to Paris, also called in a newspaper interview for the weapons embargo to be lifted so rebels could better arm themselves.

Romania's ambassador to Syria has left Damascus to relocate in Beirut due to security concerns, the Romanian Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

"The security situation in Syria is significantly deteriorating, including in central Damascus, which has led to a reduction of Romania's diplomatic activities," the ministry said.

Syrian rebels on Sunday seized control of a sector of Sheikh Suleiman base west of Aleppo, bringing them closer to holding a large swathe of territory extending to the Turkish border in the north.

The rebels took control of Regiment 111 and three other company posts located inside the base after fierce fighting overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The army on Sunday deployed heavily in the Tripoli neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen and its entrances, ending the deployment of gunmen there, in the first phase of its plan to restore security in Tripoli, state-run National News Agency reported, after six people were killed and 40 others wounded on Sunday alone.

“The second phase will be the deployment of the army in Bab al-Tabbaneh and all the frontiers of the clashes,” NNA said.

The corpses of three Lebanese fighters killed in Syria's Tall Kalakh were retrieved from Syria on Sunday.

The corpses were returned to Lebanon through the Arida border-crossing in the North.

Syria warned on Saturday that rebels could use chemical weapons in their fight against President Bashar Assad's forces, and insisted that the regime will never unleash such arms on its own people.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, however, said there was evidence the Damascus government could actually employ chemical weapons stocks in the conflict which a rights group says has killed at least 42,000 people in nearly 21 months.

Syria's new opposition coalition will announce the creation of a military council before a Friends of Syria meeting next week, to unify the ranks of insurgents, a top official told Agence France Presse on Saturday.

National Coalition Secretary General Mustafa Sabbagh said the group "will announce the creation of a supreme military council before the Friends of Syria meeting in Marrakesh" due to take place on December 12.