The United States should look at providing weapons and other aid to Syrian rebels if Russia and China refuse to reconsider their vetoes of a U.N. resolution against Damascus, a top U.S. senator said Sunday.

Senator Joe Lieberman, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said the Syrian people "have shown extraordinary courage in the face of a government much stronger than they are" and "they are not going to be denied."

Protesters attacked eight Syrian embassies around the world following reports of the bloodiest episode yet in Damascus' nearly yearlong crackdown on dissent. Mobs trashed diplomats' offices from London to Australia and set the embassy in Cairo on fire.

Activists say Syrian forces killed more than 200 people in the city of Homs before dawn Saturday, pounding restive neighborhoods with mortars and artillery. The government denies the reports.

Turkey's military jets on Friday hit Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq where members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are holed up, the army said.

"Three targets belonging to the separatist terrorist organization in the Zap region ... were effectively hit by Turkish air force planes," the General Staff said in a statement posted on its website.

Turkey would consider giving asylum to Syrian President Bashar Assad's family if such a request is made, President Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying by daily Radikal on Thursday.

"There is no such thing right now," said Gul, when asked about Turkey's answer to a possible asylum request from Assad's family.

President Nicolas Sarkozy will immediately submit a new draft of a law punishing denial of the Armenian genocide if France's top judicial body rejects it, two ministers told Agence France Presse Wednesday.

"The president told us in cabinet that he would immediately submit a new draft if there is a rejection by the Constitutional Council" of a bill approved recently by the French parliament, said one of the ministers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Turkey's trade deficit widened by 47.7 percent in 2011 as both exports and imports increased, official data showed on Tuesday.

The gap reached 105.8 billion dollars (80.2 billion euros) from 71.6 billion dollars in 2010, the state statistics institute said.

Turkish police arrested an Iranian passenger on a domestic flight after he attacked cabin crew because he was angered by a six-hour delay, the Anatolia news agency reported on Tuesday.

The passenger, identified only as S.R.I., was scheduled to fly from Istanbul to Antalya in southern Turkey on Monday evening on an Onur Air plane, but heavy snowfall in Istanbul caused long delays.

A group of French senators said Tuesday they had asked the constitutional council to examine a new law that punishes denial of the Armenian genocide, effectively suspending the legislation.

Turkey reacted furiously last week when the Senate approved the law which threatens with jail anyone in France who denies that the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces amounted to genocide.

Disagreement on Syria is one underlying cause of the current diplomatic row between Iraq and Turkey, analysts say, but crucial economic ties are likely to prevent a serious escalation.

Despite improving relations and rising trade between their two countries in recent years, the rhetoric between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become heated in recent weeks as Baghdad grappled with a political crisis that has stoked sectarian tensions.

The Gulf Arab states and Turkey, which have spearheaded regional condemnation of the Syrian regime for its deadly crackdown, urged Damascus Saturday to accept an Arab League plan to stop the bloodshed "without delay."

The Arab plan, which envisages President Bashar Assad transferring power to his deputy and the formation of a national unity government within two months, has been rejected by Syria.