- NEW: Sunday's death toll reaches 46 across Syria
- Annan will visit Moscow on Monday to meet with Russia's president and foreign minister
- Syrian official: The Tremseh incident "was a military operation and not a massacre"
- U.N. spokeswoman: The attack in Tremseh apparently targeted mainly army defectors and activists
Are you in Tremseh in Hama province? Send photos and stories to CNN iReport.
(CNN) -- The head of a prominent Syrian opposition group says U.S. President Barack Obama should take greater action on Syria and not be worried about whether the "right decision" will hurt Obama's re-election campaign.
The plea comes after more than 200 people were reportedly massacred last week in the Syrian town of Tremseh.
"We want for America and the Western countries to carry out their responsibilities through the (U.N.) Security Council and work to adopt a resolution under Article 7 to force this regime to stop killing Syrians," Abdulbaset Sieda, chairman of the Syrian National Council, said in an interview to air Sunday on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS.
"With regard to America, specifically, we would like to say to President Obama that waiting for election day to make the right decision on Syria is unacceptable for the Syrians. We cannot understand that a superpower ignores the killing of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians because of an election campaign that a president may win or lose. That's why we are saying there is work that must take place at the Security Council."
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U.N. sets deadline for Syria The Obama administration has decried the Syrian regime and called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down. But previous attempts to pass resolutions condemning al-Assad's regime at the U.N. Security Council have failed due to vetoes from Russia and China.
If continued efforts at the Security Council fail, the United States and other countries "can move outside the scope of the Security Council," Sieda said.
While world leaders remain without a consensus about what to do about Syria, the death toll continued to escalate, opposition activists said.
At least 46 people were killed Sunday in cities across the country, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said. The deaths include 11 people killed by shelling in Hama and Deir Ezzor, the LCC said.
On Sunday, U.N. observers will return to the town of Tremseh, where opposition activists say more than 200 people were killed Thursday -- the deadliest day in Syria's 16-month crisis.
"The attack ... appeared targeted at specific groups and houses, mainly of army defectors and activists," said Sausan Ghosheh, spokeswoman for the head of the U.N. monitoring mission. "There were pools of blood and blood spatters in rooms of several homes together with bullet cases."
Ghosheh said Saturday that a wide range of weapons were used, including artillery, mortars and small arms, but the number of casualties in Tremseh was still unclear.
But on Sunday, Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said what happened in Tremseh "was a military operation and not a massacre."
The Syrian regime has blamed "armed terrorist groups" for deaths in Tremseh, saying residents called security forces for help after the terrorist groups raided the town.
"Let me explain that Tremseh is a very small village that is no bigger than 1 (square) kilometer. It is quite absurd that there are some media outlets who were spreading rumors that the Syrian military dispatched 150 tanks in such a small area," Makdissi said, adding that claims of artillery shelling and the use of helicopters are "baseless."
Citing an unnamed source, the Foreign Ministry spokesman offered a much lower death toll from Tremseh than what opposition activists said.
"I can't release the name of one witness, but there was someone who declared that those were killed in Tremseh were 37 militants, and only two civilians were killed," Makdissi said.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, meanwhile, reported that two terrorists "confessed to taking part in a series of murders and acts of terrorism before the army entered the town" of Tremseh.
But the bloodbath in Tremseh prompted renewed international outrage against the Syrian regime and underscored the desperate need to find a solution to the conflict that has killed thousands.
Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria, is scheduled to visit Moscow on Monday for two days of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Annan's spokesman said.
Annan brokered a six-point peace plan for Syria, which both the Syrian regime and rebels agreed to, but was never fully implemented. A key part of the plan calls for a cessation of violence "by all parties."
Since the Syrian crisis began in March 2011, the United Nations estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed in the violence; opposition groups say thousands more have died.
Sieda said it's important to remember that despite surging casualty tolls, each victim's death is a tragedy.
"We are dealing with numbers and forget that these people are human beings who have fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends."
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