UN chief Ban Ki-moon has issued a call to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to stop killing his own people, telling him he was heading for a dead end.
Ban's appeal on Sunday came as the state-run SANA news agency reported that Assad has issued a general amnesty for prisoners who "committed crimes" during the 10-months-old uprising against the Syrian government.
"Today, I say again to President Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people. The path of repression is a dead end," Ban said in a keynote address at a conference on Arab world democracy in Beirut.
Ban also said that the revolutions of the Arab Spring show that people will no longer accept tyranny.
"The lessons of the past year are eloquent and clear. The winds of change will not cease to blow. The flame ignited in Tunisia will not be dimmed. Let us remember as well, none of these great changes began with a call for a regime change. First and foremost, people wanted dignity."
Ban and the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, met in the Lebanese capital on Saturday and discussed the "dangerous trajectory" of the crisis in Syria, sources said.
"They discussed a range of regional matters, in particular the situation in Syria as well as Iran and Cyprus," Martin Nesirky, Ban's spokesman, said in a statement.
"The secretary-general said the dangerous trajectory of the crisis in Syria was a source of grave concern."
Turkey shares a 910km border with Syria, its former ally and has strongly condemned the Syrian government's crackdown on dissent.

'General amnesty'

The state-run news agency said that Sunday's general amnesty that was issued by Assad covers those who have peacefully demonstrated, those who have carried unlicensed weapons and those who hand over their weapons to authorities before the end of January.
It also applies to army deserters who fled military service if they turn themselves in before January 31, SANA reported.
It is not the first time that Assad issues a pardon for prisoners during the uprising. On May 31, Assad issued a general amnesty for all political detainees, including members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood.
And on June 21, he declared an amnesty covering all crimes committed before June 20, according to SANA.
It was not clear how many prisoners would be affected by the latest pardon.
Since the outbreak of the uprising against Assad's rule in March, Assad has freed 3,952 prisoners, according to SANA. The opposition claims there are thousands more in Syrian prisons.
UN estimated in mid-December that a crackdown on the protesters has killed more than 5,000 people.
The government in Damascus says far fewer have been killed while accusing "armed terrorist gangs" backed by foreign powers of being responsible for the violence.

Call for dialogue

The statements from Ban came as Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, called on the Syrian opposition to respond positively to President Bashar al-Assad's "reform plans" and urged dialogue to resolve the ongoing crisis.
Addressing a party rally in the town of Baalbek by video link, Nasrallah, who has been in hiding since 2006 for fear of assassination, said: "We call on the Syrian opposition inside and outside Syria to respond to the calls of the dialogue by President Assad and to co-operate with him in implementing the reforms he has announced, which are very important reforms.
"We can resolve Syria's problems and we call openly for the return of calm and stability and for arms to be laid down and for resolving issues through dialogue."
Nasrallah called on Arab countries, Turkey and Iran to participate in resolving the crisis in Syria.
"We call for the unification of efforts by the Arab countries and the Arab League and the influential Muslim countries in the region, Iran and Turkey, to help end the crisis in Syria and not drive people into corners and drive the situation towards an explosion," Nasrallah said.
He also dismissed a UN call for his staunchly anti-Western and anti-Israeli group to disarm, saying it was determined to maintain a military capacity to defend Lebanon.