Syrian Rebels Reject Talks, Report Says BEIRUT, Lebanon - An international diplomatic effort to nudge Syria's president toward peace talks ran into difficulties on Friday even before it got under way when the leader of the main exile opposition group was quoted as rejecting the initiative. Spearheading the diplomatic effort, Kofi Annan, a former secretary general of the United Nations who was recently appointed special envoy on Syria representing the United Nations and the Arab League, was scheduled to visit Damascus on Saturday. He told reporters in Cairo that he would urge President Bashar al-Assad and his opponents to stop fighting and seek a political solution. But, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the opposition Syrian National Council who is based in Paris, was quoted as saying he rejected the call for dialogue at a time when government forces were pursuing military operations against civilians and "massacring" them. He said Mr. Annan's appeal for talks between the government and the opposition was "disappointing." The Syrian National Council has called for outside military intervention, a position that has been rejected by other prominent dissidents among Syria's fractured opposition. His remarks came as other diplomatic efforts focused mainly on how to provide emergency relief to civilians in Homs and other cities that have been endured a year violence in what has become the bloodiest of Arab revolts against entrenched leaders. Several parts of Syria are bereft of food, water and medical supplies, activists said. Valerie Amos, the top United Nations relief official, who arrived in Syria on Wednesday to assess those needs, said she was overwhelmed by the destruction she saw from a monthlong military assault on Homs, a center of armed resistance to Mr. Assad. She said she saw very few residents, particularly in the ravaged neighborhood of Baba Amr, and she wondered where they had gone. A senior official in Syria's Oil Ministry, meanwhile, announced on Thursday that he was joining the opposition in what appeared to be the highest-level defection of a government official since the start of the Syrian uprising. British and American officials, who have supported the overthrow of Mr. Assad's government, spoke about the defection of the deputy oil minister, Abdu Hussameldin, announced in a video statement, as a potentially significant event. Prominent Syrian opposition figures were more cautious about the development, with some saying it was unlikely to hurt the government seriously. "I don't consider such a defection a strike for the regime," said Samir Nachar, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council. It's more a political and moral message for loyalist figures and regime symbols who are still hesitant to declare their defection. It's just the beginning. Haytham Manna, a Syrian dissident based in Paris, said the defections of bureaucrats would not be enough to topple the government. "The most important thing is the army," he said. The inability to attract high-level defectors has been a continuing source of consternation for Mr. Assad's opponents and a sign of the government's resilience, despite its growing international isolation. While the Libyan opposition was able to attract high-level government and military defectors days after the uprising began there - and myriad other officials, from ambassadors to the foreign minister, as the conflict wore on - the Syrian opposition is still waiting for one well-known person to step down and denounce the government. Even so, a State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said the defection of Mr. Hussameldin, while not confirmed, could be significant and that he could be "privy to a lot of information about what Assad has really done to his country." Kareem Fahim reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Alan Cowell from Paris, and J. David Goodman from New York.