The White House said Wednesday, after the Arab League revealed Syria had agreed to a plan to end political violence, that it had not changed its position that President Bashar al-Assad should go.

White House spokesman Jay Carney did not comment on the details of the Arab League plan or on whether Washington had been informed of the Syrian response.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he believes the Syrian opposition will be successful in their “glorious resistance” to the ongoing government crackdown, Turkey’s English-language daily Today’s Zaman reported Tuesday.

Speaking during his Justice and Development Party's parliamentary bloc meeting on Tuesday, Erdogan warned that Turkey cannot remain silent in the face of the events in Syria.

A Syrian-American pleaded not guilty in U.S. court Friday to charges he spied on anti-Assad protesters and handed recordings to Syrian intelligence in a bid to silence the opposition.

Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, was remanded to custody by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton, who set a March 5 trial date.

Spain summoned Syria's ambassador to Madrid on Friday, complaining of allegations that members of his embassy abused Syrian opposition sympathizers on Spanish soil, the Spanish government said.

The foreign ministry summoned ambassador Hussamedin Ala'a "after repeated complaints by Syrian and Spanish-Syrian citizens, opponents of the current regime, of acts allegedly committed by members of the embassy in clear abuse of their status," it said in a statement.

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, who was abruptly withdrawn this week because of security threats, hopes to return to Damascus before the end of November, the State Department said Wednesday.

"Let me just say he has bought his Thanksgiving turkey for his embassy staff, and he wants very much to have Thanksgiving dinner for his folks there. So that's our expectation, it will be sometime before Thanksgiving," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Clashes raged Thursday in Syria between troops and suspected army deserters as more civilians were reportedly killed in the crisis-hit country, a rights group said.

Violence in Syria has intensified in recent weeks as defections from the army reportedly increase, and at least five civilians died in Thursday's violence, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syria has agreed to allow an Arab League delegation to visit Damascus in a bid to defuse the deadly violence there, the 22-member body said in a statement on Thursday.

"We have received approval from the Syrian government to receive a ministerial delegation, headed by Qatar on Wednesday, October 26," Assistant Secretary General Wagih Hanafi said.

Syrian state television on Wednesday aired a broadcast of what it said was a rally in support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the second city of Aleppo, Syria's economic hub, claiming it was attended by a million supporters of the embattled leader.

The pro-regime gathering in Aleppo comes a week after a similar rally in the capital, Damascus.

A Syrian rights group called on Tuesday for President Bashar al-Assad to be tried for "crimes against humanity" as troops reportedly mounted the fiercest raids in the Damascus region of their seven-month crackdown on dissent.

Activists also reported that security forces shot dead three people in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the anti-regime protests that erupted in mid-March, and a fourth in the town of Qusayr on the Lebanese border.

The European Union decided on Thursday to freeze the assets of the Commercial Bank of Syria, in a new set of sanctions over the Syrian regime's brutal crackdown of protesters, diplomats said.

"Today's decision is a direct consequence of the appalling and brutal campaign the Syrian regime is waging against its own people," said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.