The Arab League on Thursday served a new ultimatum on Damascus, giving it less than 24 hours to allow monitors into the country or face sanctions, while for the first time calling on the United Nations to help resolve the crisis.

The ultimatum, issued at the end of a crisis meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, came amid an explosion of violence in Syria in which 32 people died, including 11 security force members and seven military pilots.

Eighteen members of Syria's security forces and two deserters were killed in clashes on Thursday in the flashpoint province of Homs, where at least 29 civilians also died, activists said.

"Eleven soldiers and members of the security forces were killed in skirmishes" with deserters in the town of Huleh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri held talks on Thursday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

The two officials discussed the latest developments, especially those related to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and regional affairs.

Lebanon will not endorse any potential Arab League sanctions against Syria, Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said, as the organization prepared to meet on Thursday to discuss measures against Damascus.

"Lebanon will not endorse any sanctions by the Arab League against Syria," Mansour, who is loyal to Hizbullah, told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) before heading to Cairo for the meeting.

France renewed its support for humanitarian corridors in Syria on Thursday but said such a move would have to either be agreed by Damascus or come under an international mandate.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Wednesday that France would ask its EU partners to consider the idea of setting up protected escape routes for Syrian civilians fleeing the regime of Bashar Assad.

France will ask its EU partners to consider setting up humanitarian corridors in Syria, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Thursday after talks with Burhan Ghalioun, head of the opposition Syrian National Council.

Juppe said France considered the SNC a "legitimate interlocutor" and he would take to Brussels the idea of protected escape routes for Syrian civilians fleeing the crackdown of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

March 14 General Secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid questioned on Wednesday the double standards adopted in tackling security issues in Lebanon, asking why it is easy for the army to enter the town of Arsal while it is prevented from entering the town of Siddiqin.

He wondered after the General Secretariat’s weekly meeting: “Why was it allowed to pursue Syrians in Arsal, while the army, which is responsible for protecting Lebanon and implementing U.N. Security Council 1701, was thwarted from heading to Siddiqin?”

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour is expected to travel to Cairo on Thursday to participate in the Arab foreign ministers emergency meeting on Syria in light of the end of the deadline granted to the state to implement reform.

On Lebanon’s stance on the ministers’ decision, Mansour told the National News Agency: “We will wait and see what step they will take and then we will make ours.”

Lebanese Forces MP Elie Keyrouz requested in a memo to Speaker Nabih Berri that his inquiry to the government over the abduction of Syrian opposition members in Lebanon be changed into a debriefing.

He said that this request stems from the abduction of the Syrians, who are then handed over to Syrian authorities “in a violation of humanitarian laws.”

Information Minister Walid al-Daouq announced after a cabinet session on Wednesday that the government would seek "clarifications" from the U.S. ambassador to Beirut after Hizbullah said it had succeeded in exposing CIA operatives.

Earlier on Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan, who represents Hizbullah in the 30-seat government, told reporters during a break from the cabinet meeting that the government had "decided to summon U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly to question her on this issue."