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Mr Odabas said, meanwhile, that two of 13 Syrians who had been wounded in
clashes inside Syria and were brought to Kilis for treatment earlier Monday
have died.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, was in China today, the first
official trip by a Turkish premier in 27 years. The two were expected to
discuss Syria.

The incursion comes as a last minute demand by Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian
government was rejected by the opposition, as the prospect of a UN-brokered
ceasefire looked increasingly bleak.

The truce plan, devised by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, was supposed to go
into effect on Tuesday, with a withdrawal of Syrian
forces from population centres, followed within 48 hours by a ceasefire by
both sides in the uprising against four decades of repressive rule by the
Assad family.

But on Sunday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said that ahead of any troop pullback,
the government needs written guarantees from opposition fighters that they
will lay down their weapons.

The commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army, Riad al-Asaad, said that while
his group is ready to abide by a truce, it does not recognise the regime “and
for that reason we will not give guarantees.”

Mr Annan’s spokesman had no comment on the setback. The envoy has not said
what would happen if his deadlines were ignored.

Even before the setback, expectations were low that the Assad regime would
honour the agreement.

Russia, an Assad ally that supports the ceasefire plan, may now be the only
one able to salvage it. The rest of the international community, unwilling
to contemplate military intervention, has little leverage over Syria.

China on Monday urged Syria to honour the commitment.

In recent days, instead of preparing for a withdrawal, regime troops have
stepped up shelling attacks on residential areas, killing dozens of
civilians every day in what the opposition described as a frenzied rush to
gain ground. Activists said at least 21 people were killed in violence on
Sunday.

“Mortar rounds are falling like rain,” said activist Tarek
Badrakhan, describing an assault in the central city of Homs on Sunday. He
spoke via Skype as explosions were heard in the background. The regime is
exploiting the truce plan “to kill and commit massacres,” he said.

Just as Mr Annan complained on Sunday that the escalation was “unacceptable,”
Syria said its acceptance of the Annan deal last week was misunderstood and
suggested it would not be able to withdraw its troops under current
conditions.

In addition to demanding written guarantees from the opposition, Foreign
Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi said Syria also wants assurances from
Annan that Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – Assad’s most active critics –
halt “financing and arming of terrorist groups.”

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are said to be creating a multimillion dollar fund to
pay rebel fighters, while Turkey has floated the idea of creating buffer
zones for refugees in Syrian territory, near the Turkish border.

Many had expected the Assad regime to stall and create new obstacles to a
truce because it has little to fear from the international community, said
Peter Harling, an analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank.

“Nothing seems to have a price tag,” he said, noting that regime has
been accused of shelling whole neighbourhoods, exacting collective
punishment and driving people out of their homes.

The regime might also be reluctant to move forward for fear of losing control.

While Mr Annan’s plan calls for eventual negotiations between the government
and the opposition over Syria’s political future, anti-regime activists say
huge numbers of protesters would probably flood the streets and quickly
topple Assad if he were forced to halt his year-long crackdown.

Mr Makdessi, the Syrian official, suggested that a truce without guarantees
would give rebels the upper hand. He said Syria will not allow a repeat of
what happened during the Arab League’s observer mission in Syria in January,
when Assad pulled back his forces, only to see rebels flood the vacated
areas.

The Syrian foreign minister is expected in Moscow on Monday, but it is not
clear whether Russia will step in to try to salvage the Annan plan it had
supported enthusiastically.

Despite growing criticism of Assad, Russia has consistently shielded him from
international condemnation.

Since the Syrian uprising erupted in March 2011, more than 9,000 people have
been killed, the UN says.

On Sunday, Syrian forces pounded towns in the centre and north of the country.

Activists said rebel fighters shot down a Syrian army helicopter with a heavy
machine gun in northwestern Idlib province. The report came from the
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Idlib activist Fadi
al-Yassin, both citing multiple witnesses. Al-Yassin said witnesses saw the
helicopter crash to the ground, and that fighters were trying to make their
way to the area.

Syria restricts access of foreign journalists, and activists’ reports cannot
be confirmed independently. There was no official comment.

Some of the heaviest fighting of the day was in Homs, where government troops
attacked several rebel-held neighbourhoods, said Badrakhan, the local
activist.

In the Khaldiyeh neighbourhood, 40 bodies were piled in a room in a makeshift
hospital because the constant shelling has prevented burials, he said,
adding that activists are aiming fans at the corpses so they won’t decompose
quickly.

“We might have to bury them in public gardens,” he said.

Near the capital of Damascus, government troops raided the suburbs of Darya,
Douma and Beit Jin.

The grass-roots Local Coordination Committees put the day’s death toll on the
opposition side at 45, including six children. It said nine people were
killed in Homs and 13 in Hama province, among them seven members of one
family. The Observatory reported at least 21 civilians killed in fighting
and shelling by government forces, along with seven rebel fighters and 12
soldiers.

Source: AP