The 193-nation UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved a non-binding resolution endorsing an Arab League plan that urges Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside.
The resolution also condemns human rights violations in Syria and urges an end to the violence in that country.
With 137 votes in favour, 12 against and 17 abstentions, those voting against included Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.
Earlier today, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon called on Syrian authorities to stop killing civilians and said potential crimes against humanity were taking place in the country.
"We see neighbourhoods shelled indiscriminately, hospitals used as torture centres, children as young as 10 years old killed and abused. We see almost a certain crimes against humanity," he told reporters after meeting Austrian president Heinz Fischer today.
This morning Syrian troops attacked Deraa to try to stamp out rebels in the border city where the uprising against president Bashar al-Assad's rule began last March, residents and opposition activists said.
The attack, a day after Dr Assad said he would hold a referendum and elections, followed a push against rebels in the major cities of Hama and Homs in an apparent drive to crush the 11-month uprising against his rule.
Dr Assad's offer of a referendum on a new constitution in two weeks' time, leading to multi-party elections within 90 days, drew scornful rejections from the opposition and the West.
France, which earlier today said it was negotiating a new UN security council resolution with Russia, said it wanted to create humanitarian corridors to ease the plight of civilians caught up in the violence.
Speaking after meeting his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, French foreign minister Alain Juppe said Paris would not in the long term accept the existing political status quo.
"We can possibly reach a compromise on a short-term objective which is to end the massacres," Mr Juppe told reporters in Vienna after a conference on Afghanistan. "We must do everything so that the violence ends and that a lot of humanitarian aid is given to the Syrian people," he said.
The two countries were ready to work on a new Security Council resolution despite Moscow vetoing a version based on an Arab League transition plan on February 4th, Mr Juppe said.
An authoritative Chinese newspaper, apparently responding to criticism of China and Russia for vetoing a UN security council resolution urging Dr Assad to step down, said today that meddling in Syria by foreign powers risked stirring up a hornets' nest of bloodshed and instability in the region.
The commentary in the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, carried an author's pen name that is often used to state Beijing's foreign policy stance.
"The political ecology in the Middle East is extremely frail, a tangled mess of thousands of years of ethnic and religious conflict," the commentary said.
World powers must realise this and handle bloodshed in Syria and Middle East tensions with a sense of realism, the paper said, adding that the spread of conflict would be a "catastrophe" in a crucial phase of global economic recovery.
"The Middle East is the world's most important fuel depot. If gripped by chaos, oil prices would skyrocket, shocking the stock market, financial systems and economies," the paper said.
Washington's aim was to install a friendly government in Syria to counter the influence in the region of Iran, it said.
The Chinese foreign ministry said later that vice foreign minister Zhai Jun would visit Syria tomorrow and Saturday.
The state news agency said security forces "chased and fought with an armed terrorist group in the Hamidiya neighbourhood of Hama that has been terrifying citizens" and arrested some of its members, who had automatic rifles and rocket propelled grenades.
Artillery shelled parts of Homs on Wednesday for the 13th day in a row. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group, said at least four people were killed by army fire concentrated on Baba Amro district, a Sunni neighbourhood.
In Damascus, troops killed at least two youths when they swept into the Barzeh district, searching houses and making arrests, residents said.
Reuters