The United States is stepping up contacts inside and outside Syria with Syrians who are seeking political change, a State Department spokeswoman said Thursday.

The move appeared to mark a toughening in the administration's stance toward Damascus as it escalates an internal crackdown on dissent with military sweeps on towns near the Turkish border.

The European Union on Thursday began work to toughen sanctions against Syria, looking at adding firms and a dozen people to a blacklist which already includes President Bashar al-Assad and key allies.

Several diplomatic sources said experts from the 27-nation bloc were discussing ways Thursday of "widening sanctions" against Damascus.

Spain said Thursday it was booting out Libya's ambassador over the Gadhafi regime's repression of civilians and expelling three embassy officials for unspecified activities.

Madrid told Ambassador Ageli Abdussalam Ali Breni he had 10 days to leave the country, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Egyptian justice ministry's fraud unit on Thursday slapped a travel ban on ousted president Hosni Mubarak's two daughters-in-law and their children, a judicial official told Agence France Presse.

Assem al-Gohari, who heads the Illicit Gains Authority, ordered the ban on Heidi Rasekh and Khadiga al-Gammal, the wives of Mubarak's sons Alaa and Gamal, and their children, said the official.

France's top diplomat on Thursday said that although forcing out Moammar Gadhafi was not mentioned in the U.N. resolution authorizing NATO's assault on Libya, it is what most countries wanted.

Security Council resolution 1973 gave the green light to a no fly zone imposed in Libyan air space and an aerial bombing campaign designed to protect civilians from the Gadhafi regime's brutality, Alain Juppe said.

Russia's special envoy Mikhail Margelov said he had been told by Libya's prime minister Thursday that Tripoli was holding talks with the Benghazi-based rebels in Paris, Russian news agencies reported.

But he cautioned that the talks, whose latest round he said was held this week in Paris, were off to a slow start because of the "tough positions" adopted by the two sides.

The Palestinians will seek U.N. recognition and membership regardless of whether there is a resumption of peace talks, negotiator Mohammed Shtayeh said on Thursday.

His comments were made as the international community pushes a raft of new peace initiatives in a bid to head off the Palestinian push for U.N. membership.

NATO is ready to help the so-called Arab Spring revolts to "well and truly blossom", the secretary general of the alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said Thursday.

"The changes we have seen in North Africa and the Middle East were unexpected," he said in a speech to Spain's Senate entitled "NATO and the Mediterranean: the changes ahead."

Russia and China oppose outside interference in the unrest in the Arab world, the two presidents said Thursday in a declaration, as the West seeks their support in increasing pressure on Syria.

"The sides believe that the search for settling the situation in the countries of Middle East and North Africa should take place in the legal field and through political means," said the declaration signed by Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Hu Jintao.

The United States on Thursday condemned Syria's "outrageous use of violence" in response to a popular uprising, saying it must come to an immediate end.

"The international community has been shocked by the horrific reports of torture and arbitrary arrests, and widespread use of violence against peaceful protesters," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said after nearly 1,300 civilians have been reportedly killed in the regime's bloody crackdown.