The United States said Wednesday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was either disconnected from reality or "crazy" after he argued he was not responsible for killing thousands of protesters.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner reiterated the U.S. view that Assad has lost legitimacy and should step down after the Syrian leader said in a rare interview that "only a crazy person" would kill his own people.

The regime of President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday urged Syrians to vote en masse in municipal elections next week, while its crackdown on dissent showed no signs of abating.

"December 12 is an important moment. All citizens must take part in the municipal elections and vote for the candidates they consider best capable of defending the public interest," wrote Al-Baath, the newspaper of the ruling party which has been in power since 1963.

Yemen's Prime Minister-designate Mohammed Basindawa said on Wednesday he had finalized his new unity government and would disclose the line-up later in the day.

"The government has been formed and we will announce it formally this evening," Basindawa told Agence France Presse in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Egypt's military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi swore in a new cabinet on Wednesday including new Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri and a former police chief to head the interior ministry.

The new line-up of 30 ministers, including the prime minister, retains 12 from the last cabinet. Three ministers appointed by strongman Hosni Mubarak shortly before his overthrow have also survived the shuffle.

An Egyptian court rejected Wednesday a petition to remove the chief judge in ex-president Hosni Mubarak's murder trial, filed by a lawyer claiming the judge favored the defense, state media reported.

"The Cairo appeal court has backed keeping judge Ahmed Refaat in the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak," the official MENA news agency reported, adding the court also fined the lawyer who moved to dismiss him.

Syria's isolation will intensify if Damascus fails to stop killing protesters, the British Foreign Office's minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, said on Wednesday.

"These killings must stop," Burt told Agence France Presse in Tripoli, where he reopened the British Council which had been closed during the armed revolt against Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied ordering the killing of thousands of protesters and said "only a crazy person" would target his own people, in a U.S. television interview released Wednesday.

Speaking to ABC News, Assad brushed off widening international sanctions and questioned the U.N. death toll of more than 4,000 since the eruption of the unrest in March, saying most victims were government supporters.

Yemen's Prime Minister-designate Mohammed Basindawa said on Wednesday he had finalized his new unity government and would disclose the line-up later in the day.

"The government has been formed and we will announce it formally this evening," Basindawa told Agence France Presse in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Syria's government on Wednesday welcomed a pledge by Turkey not to let its territory be used as a springboard for any attacks against its neighbors.

"We welcome any Turkish statement aiming to preserve good neighborly relations with Syria," foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Maqdisi told a news conference broadcast live on state television.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi is due in Baghdad on Thursday to discuss the regional bloc's sanctions against Syria, which Iraq refuses to enforce, a foreign ministry official told Agence France Presse.

"He will hold talks with (foreign minister) Hoshyar Zebari, particularly on Syria," the official said.