Western and Arab nations stepped up pressure on President Bashar Assad yesterday, mistrusting his acceptance of a plan to end a year of bloodshed, but were not expected to arm rebels or fully recognize an opposition council.

Opening a "Friends of Syria" conference in Istanbul, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told foreign ministers and other officials from some 70 countries that the "legitimate demands of the Syrian people must be met, right here, right now."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged members of Assad's government to halt operations targeting civilians, or face "serious consequences."

Participants at the conference on Syria in Istanbul say Gulf countries are creating a multimillion-dollar fund to pay salaries to members of the rebel Free Syrian Army and soldiers who defect from the regime and join opposition ranks.

The violence came a day after the regime of Assad declared that those seeking its ouster had been defeated and that it was now focused on stabilizing the security situation nationwide. The latest deaths come as dozens of representatives from Western and Arab countries met in Istanbul for talks aimed at pressuring Damascus to implement a peace plan by UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to stop the bloodshed.

The heaviest fighting erupted in the town of Quriyeh in eastern Deir Ezzor province, killing five rebel fighters, four soldiers including an officer and a civilian, said the Britain-based Observatory.

A group of army deserters killed four other troops in an ambush on their convoy near the town of Jisr Al-Shughur in northwestern Idlib province close to the border with Turkey, it said.

In the same province, a sniper shot dead a woman near the town of Maaret Al-Numan and other fighting broke out near the town of Saraqeb between rebels and the army during a search operation.

The monitoring group said that in Daraa province in the south — where the first protests against Assad's iron-fisted rule erupted in mid-March last year — four soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels near the town of Jassem.

Another three soldiers who tried to defect during the fighting there were recaptured and shot dead by an officer, it added.

Security forces also killed two civilians at Um Al-Mayazen in eastern Daraaa province, and three members of the security forces died when their vehicles came under attack at Sem El-Julan.

Two civilians were also reported killed in Homs in the centre of the country, one when the Old City came under bombardment and the other who was shot dead.

In the north of Hama province, also in central Syria, three civilians were shot dead as security forces carried out searches in the Latamneh area. There was also trouble in the capital Damascus, with a young man reported shot dead in the Rukneddine district in the north of the city, again during a search operation by security forces.

Another young man was killed in a raid by security forces in the town of Dmeir in Damascus province, where four other people were detained, monitors said.

In Maaraba village, also in Damascus province, a soldier was wounded in an attack on a checkpoint. The Observatory also said government forces conducted searches and made a number of arrests near Douma, northeast of the capital.

Clinton said the United States was providing communications gear and other aid to Syria's civilian opposition, and denounced Assad for failing to follow through on his agreement to a peace plan proposed by UN-Arab League special Annan.

"Nearly a week has gone by, and we have to conclude that the regime is adding to its long list of broken promises," she said.

The United States and its Gulf Arab allies, suspecting Assad of playing for time, urged Annan on Saturday to set a timeline for "next steps" if no ceasefire materialized.

A Western diplomat said the "Friends of Syria" would declare support for Annan's mission, but stress it cannot be open-ended.

The diplomat said their communiqué would promise additional measures to protect the Syrian people, and say the UN Security Council, where Russia and China have twice blocked resolutions on Syria, should play an important role in ending the conflict.

"The wording is constructively ambiguous," the diplomat said.

Violence has raged unabated despite Annan's mediation. Opposition activists reported at least 35 people killed on Sunday, many of them in clashes between the army and rebels in northwestern and eastern Syria.

Syrian media derided the Istanbul meeting, which the Baath newspaper described as "a regional and international scramble to find ways of killing more Syrians and destroying their society and country, to reach the broad goal of weakening Syria."

Annan will brief the UN Security Council today on his efforts to calm a conflict in which Syrian security forces have killed more than 9,000 people, by a UN estimate, while rebels have killed 3,000 troops and police, according to Damascus.

His six-point plan demands that Assad order his military to cease- fire, withdraw troops from cities and open daily windows for humanitarian aid, but does not require him to step down.

Gulf Arab countries within the "Friends of Syria" group have pushed for more support to be given to the FSA, formed to fight back after months of violent repression of unarmed protesters.

But Western countries fear strident opposition from Russia and China, which did not attend the Istanbul meeting, as well as the prospect of being sucked into an intractable conflict.

They have slapped sanctions on Syria, but these have failed so far to soften the government's crackdown on its opponents.

Wary of military intervention and unsure of the credibility of the fractious opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), Western powers have yet to discover how to unseat Assad.

Clinton urged the Syrian opposition to translate its vision for a democratic post-Assad era into a "political action plan to win support among all of Syria's communities".

SNC leader Burhan Ghalioun pressed the "Friends of Syria" to strengthen the rebel army and open humanitarian aid corridors.

In a separate statement, the SNC requested communications and other non-lethal equipment for the FSA, and possibly arms.

"The provision of arms is not our preferred option. We know it carries high risks of escalation into civil war but we cannot stand back and watch our people being massacred," it said.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France shared Turkey's desire for the SNC to be recognized as "the legitimate representative body of the Syrian people", but acknowledged a lack of consensus among the "Friends."