Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that Syria had become a "terrorist state" carrying out massacres against its own people.

"The regime in Syria has become a terrorist state," Erdogan told his ruling AKP meeting in Ankara. "Syria is not an ordinary country to us. We do not have the luxury to remain indifferent to what's happening there."

Three U.S. senators voiced concerns to Iraq's prime minister that Iran has resumed using Baghdad's airspace to fly weapons and equipment to bolster Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, they said on Wednesday.

China said Wednesday it supported a political transition in Syria and was not attached to President Bashar Assad as it defended its record during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton, meeting in Beijing with the country's top leadership, reiterated she was "disappointed" by the vetoes of China and Russia of U.N. resolutions that would have threatened action against Assad to end the spiraling bloodshed.

Syrian forces shelled rebel-controlled zones of Aleppo before dawn on Wednesday, killing at least 19 people, among them seven children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Ten civilians were killed in the southern neighborhood of Bustan al-Qasr while a total of nine bodies, including those of the children, were found in the Marjeh and Hanano neighborhoods, the Britain-based watchdog said.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday accused countries who send arms to Syria of spreading "misery" as he called for greater international efforts to end the war and ease a mounting humanitarian crisis.

"Those who provide arms to either side are only contributing to further misery -- and the risk of unintended consequences as the fighting intensifies and spreads," Ban told the 193-member U.N. .General Assembly.

Former prime minister Saad Hariri on Tuesday held talks in Paris with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, during which the French official stressed the importance of sparing Lebanon the repercussions of the Syrian crisis.

The meeting tackled the situations in Lebanon, the bilateral ties between the two countries and the latest developments in the region, according to a statement issued by Hariri’s press office.

A man who received a hero’s welcome in Lebanon after spending 27 years in Syrian prisons is actually a “Syrian national,” media reports said on Tuesday.

“The Syrian embassy sent a cable to the Lebanese foreign ministry, noting that Yaacoub Chamoun is a Syrian national and that he was arrested for collaborating with Israel,” al-Manar television reported.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Tuesday noted that it can help Lebanon control its border with Syria should the Lebanese government make such a request.

Commenting on media reports about a possible deployment of UNIFIL peacekeepers on the border with Syria, UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said UNIFIL’s deployment and missions were specified by the U.N. Security Council and approved by Lebanon’s government, noting that UNIFIL’s area of operations was defined by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah.

Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali on Tuesday said the memorandum submitted by the March 14 forces to President Michel Suleiman is “unachievable” and “unrealistic,” calling on the Lebanese government to respond to this “media uproar.”

“Syria has always made it clear that the treaties signed between the two countries serve Lebanon’s interest before Syria’s,” Ali said in an interview on al-Manar television.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun demanded on Tuesday a detailed account of the developments along the Lebanese-Syrian border “because developments have started to take a dangerous turn.”

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “An official government report over the border situation should be made for us to take a position from Syria.”