The four European members of the Security Council - Britain, France, Germany and Portugal - have revived a draft UN resolution that would likely condemn the government of President Bashar al-Assad, diplomats said after the meeting.

Ambassadors from other nations, including China and Russia, have previously argued that UN action would risk further destabilizing the Middle Eastern nation. It was not immediately clear whether they would support such a resolution.

Still, India's ambassador to the United Nations, Hardeep Singh Puri, who is also this month's council president, said afterward that he had "detected a certain convergence of thinking, concern about the escalating violence."

The Security Council was expected to meet again on August 2.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated her assertion that al-Assad has lost his legitimacy with the Syrian people. She met with a group of US-based Syrian activists and representatives of the Syrian-American community on August 2 to discuss the urgent situation in Syria.

Before the meeting, Amnesty International issued a statement calling on the Security Council to "urgently respond to the ongoing crackdown in Syria by referring the situation to the International Criminal Court."

It said at least 52 people were killed in Hama, Syria on July 31, and has so far received the names of more than 1,500 people believed to have been killed since protests began in mid-March.