The United States said Monday that the Syrian opposition's first priority should be to coordinate and set a democratic path after France called for the quick formation of a provisional government.

President Francois Hollande, stepping up pressure on Syria in a speech to French diplomats, pledged that France would recognize a provisional government as soon as it is formed and urged the rebels to be inclusive.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon is "shocked" by the reports of a new massacre in Syria and demands an independent inquiry, his spokesman said Monday.

Reports of hundreds of bodies found in Daraya near Damascus on Sunday after raids by government troops highlighted the lack of protection for civilians in the Syria conflict, said Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky.

French President Francois Hollande warned Monday that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would be a legitimate reason for a foreign intervention.

"We with our allies remain very watchful to prevent the use of chemical weapons by the regime, which would be for the international community a legitimate cause for direct intervention," Hollande said in a speech to French diplomats.

Suggestions that Syrian President Bashar Assad step down are "completely unacceptable," Syria's minister tasked with talking to the opposition said in Tehran on Monday.

"Foreign interference" was behind that idea, which would be "a violation of Syria's sovereignty," National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar charged in a news conference, the ISNA news agency reported.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi named a liberal Christian, a hardline Islamist and a woman as assistants Monday as he sought to reach out beyond his power base in the Muslim Brotherhood to rival groups.

Morsi's appointments, announced just before he left for China on a key trip abroad, were seen as a balancing act between Egypt's Coptic minority, which has felt threatened by Morsi's Islamist roots, and the Brotherhood's ultra-conservative Salafist rivals.

Syrian opposition activists have drafted a political roadmap after a possible ouster of President Bashar Assad, drawing on examples from other states that moved to democracy such as South Africa.

The working group, which brought together a broad spectrum of political organizations and religious faiths, produced a report called "The Day After Project: Supporting a Democratic Transition in Syria".

Turkish media on Monday relayed the video of a Turkish journalist missing in neighboring Syria for a week and reportedly being held by troops loyal to President Bashar Assad.

The video was broadcast by Syria's al-Ikhbariya news channel and relayed by Turkey's private NTV television where Cuneyt Unal, who speaks in Turkish with Arabic subtitles, says he crossed into Aleppo together with armed groups from Chechnya, Libya, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Congress for the Republic, the party of the Tunisian president, has re-elected as secretary general an ex-minister who quit the government in June, amid simmering tensions with the ruling Islamist party.

The CPR announced early on Monday, at the end of its annual conference, that Mohammed Abbou, who resigned as administrative reform minister in June over obstacles in the fight against corruption, would remain head of the party.

Egyptian authorities have denied entry to the daughter of the jailed symbol of the Bahraini opposition movement, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, Cairo airport sources said on Monday.

Maryam al-Khawaja flew straight back to Copenhagen after arriving in Cairo on Sunday, having been denied entry "for security reasons," the sources said.

Saudi King Abdullah arrived in Casablanca on Monday for a private visit to Morocco, official sources said.

The 88-year-old monarch was received at the airport by senior Moroccan dignitaries, the official MAP news agency reported.