Syria threatened on Sunday to retaliate against any country that formally recognises a recently established opposition National Council seeking international support for the six-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
The formation of the council has been welcomed by Assad's Western critics, including the United States and France, however they have not embraced it diplomatically as they did the Libyan rebels who subsequently overthrew Muammar Qadhafi.
"We will take tough measures against any state which recognises this illegitimate council," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told a news conference in Damascus.
Speaking alongside a group of Latin American ministers who visited Syria to show support for Assad, Moualem also dismissed Turkish criticism of Assad's crackdown and said no one should think the West would launch military action against Syria. "The West will not attack Syria because no one will pay the bill," he said. "The West chose economic sanctions to starve our people, under the pretext of protecting human rights."
The United Nations says 2,900 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on mainly peaceful protests. The Syrian leadership blames armed groups backed by foreign powers for the violence, saying 1,100 members of the security forces have been killed since the unrest broke out in March.
In the town of Dumeir, 40 km (25 miles) north-east of Damascus, security forces killed three people on Sunday when they opened fire on the funeral procession of a youth whose body was returned after he died in captivity, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
On Saturday, activists said security forces killed at least two people when they shot at tens of thousands of mourners at the funeral of a Kurdish opposition figure.
Moualem described Mishaal al-Tammo as a martyr killed by terrorists, suggesting he was targeted because he opposed foreign intervention in Syria. Tammo's family have blamed Syrian authorities for his death.
Activists said Syrian security forces broke up brief demonstrations in the eastern city of Qamishli as people gathered for the funerals of people killed on Saturday at Tammo's funeral.
Turkey condemned Tammo's "heinous assassination" and also criticised the reported assault on another prominent opposition figure, former parliamentarian Riad Seif, appearing to blame Syrian authorities for both attacks.
"Turkey expects the Syrian administration to realise as soon as possible that the acts of violence designed to suppress the opposition in Syria... cannot turn back the course of history," a foreign ministry statement said.
Once a close ally of Assad's, Turkey has hosted several meetings of the opposition National Council. It has also given shelter to thousands of Syrian refugees, as well as the most senior Syrian army officer to defect from Assad's military.
CNN Turk channel said on Sunday Syrian police were stopping Turkish citizens from entering Syria at the border town of Nusaybin, a few miles (km) north of Qamishli where Tammo was killed, because of increased tensions in the area.