DAMASCUS (AFP/Reuters) - Russia denied on Wednesday talking with Washington about offering exile to Syria's president, as the chief UN observer said world powers are talking too much and not doing enough to end the Syrian conflict.Ahead of a Paris meeting of the so-called "Friends of Syria," which supports President Bashar al-Assad's ouster, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 19 more people were killed in violence across the country.Moscow denied holding talks with Washington about offering Assad exile as a way out of 16 months of bloodshed, which the Britain-based Observatory says has claimed more than 16,500 lives. "The situation with the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not being discussed with the United States," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's Interfax news agency.Earlier, Moscow's Kommersant daily had quoted a Russian diplomat as saying Western nations led by the United States were making "active attempts" to persuade Moscow to offer a home to Assad.But the report said Moscow objected to the idea, and Ryabkov stressed that Russia rejected a foreign solution to the brutal fighting now tearing apart its closest remaining Middle East ally.China, meanwhile, said its position on plans for a transition of power in Syria remained firm, and that Beijing wanted the "spirit" of the Geneva agreement to be followed.Foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin was non-committal over whether China would attend the Paris meeting, the third such gathering after one in Tunis in Feb and another in April in Istanbul.At a press conference, the chief UN observer criticised the international community for talking too much in luxurious settings and doing too little on the ground to stop the violence."There is this feeling that it's too much talk in nice hotels, in nice meetings and too little action to move forward and stop the violence," said Major General Robert Mood, who attended the Geneva meeting.Turkey's military announced on Wednesday that the bodies of the two pilots of a Turkish jet downed by Syria on June 22 have been found at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean sea.It maintained the two-seater F-4 Phantom was shot in international airspace by Syrian fire, but that the wreckage of the downed fighter has not yet been spotted.With relations between the two predominantly Muslim neighbours plunging, Assad accused Ankara in a Turkish newspaper interview published of giving logistical backing to Syrian "terrorists.""Turkey's desire to interfere in Syria's internal affairs has put it in a position which unfortunately makes it a party to all the bloody activities," Assad told the daily Cumhuriyet.Meanwhile,a Syrian general from an engineering division defected to the opposition rebels and fled to Turkey bringing the number of such top ranking officers given refuge on Turkish soil to 16, Free Syrian Army officials said.

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