U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other governments should call on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, but declined to make that call herself.

"It's not going to be any news if the United States says Assad needs to go," Clinton said, suggesting the world's reaction to such a move would be, "Ok, fine. What's next?"

The United States said Monday it was working with "a broad array" of other countries to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end the "outright murder of his own people."

Assad "has to cease the systematic violence, mass arrests, and the outright murder of his own people," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

A delegation of Syrian expatriates in Lebanon headed by Dr. Jamal al-Mohsen on Monday visited the HQ of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in downtown Beirut to deliver a letter addressed to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, state-run National News Agency reported.

“We, the members of the Syrian community in Lebanon, stress our absolute rejection of all forms of foreign interference in Syria’s domestic affairs and our adherence to the leadership of Mr. President Bashar Hafez al-Assad,” the delegation said in the letter.

At least 26 people were killed as the Syrian military opened fire on the Mediterranean port city of Latakia on Sunday, with warships and tanks joining the assault, activists said.

But the state-run news agency SANA denied that the navy had attacked Latakia, quoting its correspondent in there as saying security forces were battling gunmen.

Canada said Saturday it had expanded sanctions on Syria, including blacklisting a commercial bank and a mobile phone provider, to protest the government's brutal crackdown on protests.

The new sanctions include travel bans on four officials, including Mohammed Mufleh, head of military security in the flashpoint city of Hama, and Mohammed Makhlouf, an uncle of President Bashar al-Assad.

France advised its citizens in Syria Saturday to leave the country as security forces continue to clamp down on pro-democracy protests.

"We advise French citizens who are still in Syria to leave the country by commercial transport," the foreign ministry said in the travel advice section of its website.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has called on his Syrian counterpart to implement overdue reforms before it is too late, in a letter handed over to Bashar al-Assad by Turkey's foreign minister.

"I would not want you to look back some day and regret that you acted too little and too late," the Anatolia news agency quoted Gul as saying in his letter.

A Syrian activist stressed the Syrian regime launched a wide money transfer operation to Lebanon and Iran since the beginning of the anti-regime protests in March, the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Friday.

“The amount of money that was smuggled by (Syrian President Bashar) Assad and the Syrian regime as of the beginning of the popular uprising against him, reached more than $23 billion,” Secretary of the Syrian Conference for Change in Antalya Mohammed Karkouti told the daily.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked why Washington has not yet explicitly called for the Syrian president’s departure, said Thursday her country wanted such a call to come from “around the world,” not just from the White House.

“What we really need to do to put the pressure on Assad is to sanction the oil and gas industry. And we want to see Europe take more steps in that direction. And we want to see China take steps with us,” Clinton added in an interview with CBS News.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed during a phone call Thursday on the need for a "transition to democracy" in Syria, the White House said.

Obama's office said he and Erdogan had also agreed on the need for an "immediate halt of all bloodshed and violence against the Syrian people" by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.