"The government should answer to the demands of its people, be it Syria, Yemen or other countries," the ISNA news agency quoted him as saying. "The people of these nations have legitimate demands and the governments should respond to these demands as soon as possible," Salehi added.
"We have the same stance toward popular developments in the Middle East and North Africa. We believe that the developments in the region emanate from discontent and dissatisfaction in these countries," he said.
But he warned against toppling the Syrian regime. "A vacuum in the Syrian regime would have an unpredictable impact for the region and its neighbors," Salehi said, referring to calls by the United States and European leaders for President Bashar Assad to step down.
Salehi's comments came two days after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for dialogue between Damascus and the opposition to end months of deadly violence. "The people and government of Syria must come together to reach an understanding," Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.
But the appeals seem to have little effect on Assad. Syrian forces killed at least three protesters on Saturday as tens of thousands of people marched again to demand the resignation of Assad.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), citing witnesses, said more demonstrations had broken out in Damascus overnight and on Saturday morning than at any time since the pro-democracy uprising erupted in March.
Two of the three were killed as Assad's forces fired live ammunition to disperse demonstrators streaming from mosques in the city of Qusair and Latakia port after Laylat Al-Qadr prayers during Ramadan.
At the Al-Rifai Mosque in the upscale Damascus Kfar Sousa district, where the main secret police headquarters are located, witnesses said hundreds of security police and militiamen loyal to Assad attacked worshippers who tried to demonstrate as the prayers finished before dawn.
"Some of the 'amn' (security) went on the roof and began firing from their AK-47s to scare the crowd. Around ten people were wounded, with two hit by bullets in the neck and chest," a preacher who lives in the area told Reuters by telephone.
SOHR, headed by dissident Rami Abdelrahman, said Syrian forces fired at a funeral turned protest on Saturday in the town of Kfar Roumeh in the northwestern Idlib province bordering Turkey, injuring at least ten.
The organization said another man was killed in raids and house-to-house arrests in the nearby town of Kfar Nubul.
"Besides the killings, another tragedy in Syria is the tens of thousands of people arrested since the beginning of uprising, many of whose whereabouts are unknown," Abdelrahman told Reuters.
