France Demands Access to Wounded Journalists in Homs, Summons Syrian Ambassador

France on Wednesday demanded access to the victims of an attack in Syria that killed a U.S. war correspondent and French photojournalist, and summoned Syria's envoy to Paris.

Syria has meanwhile denied that it was aware that the journalists had entered the country.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the killing of the two journalists showed that it was time for President Bashar Assad's regime to go.

"Following the information we have from Homs that a group of journalists were victims of shelling, I am asking the Syrian government to immediately stop attacks and respect its humanitarian obligations," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in a statement.

"I have asked our embassy in Damascus to require the Syrian authorities provide secure medical access to assist the victims with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross," Juppe said.

He said he had also "summoned the Syrian ambassador to Paris to express these requirements and to remind him of the intolerable nature of the Syrian government's behavior."

Sarkozy said the incident showed "the importance of freedom of information".

"This shows that enough is enough, this regime must go. There is no reason why Syrians should not have the right to live their lives, to freely choose their destiny," Sarkozy said.

The United States also condemned the killings.

The deaths are "another example of the shameless brutality" of the Syrian regime, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told AFP on Wednesday.

France identified the two Western reporters killed in Syria on Wednesday as veteran American war correspondent Marie Colvin of Britain's Sunday Times and freelance French photojournalist Remi Ochlik.

Activists said they were killed and three others wounded when forces loyal to Assad's regime shelled a makeshift media center in the Baba Amr district of Homs.

The French daily Le Figaro said one of its reporters, Edith Bouvier, had been among three journalists wounded in the same incident.

Syrian authorities later announced that they were not aware that the two journalists had entered the country, said Information Minister Adnan Mahmud.

"The authorities had no information that the two journalists had entered Syrian territory," he told AFP.

Mahmud said that he had asked "specialized authorities in Homs to look for them (Colvin and Ochlik)." He did not acknowledge whether they were dead or alive.

"The ministry urges all foreign journalists who entered Syria illegally to report to the nearest immigration office to legalise their presence," he added.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Sunday Times, said a Syrian army shell attack killed veteran Colvin and injured her British photographer colleague Paul Conroy.

He said the company was doing all it could to recover her body.