ANKARA: An envoy of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad held crisis talks with Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan Wednesday, as Turkey pressed its once-close neighbour to end a crackdown that it has called “savagery”. The once-close ties between the neighbors appear close to breaking point, and Assad's envoy Hassan Turkmani is likely to face Turkish impatience over Syria's repressive tactics and slowness to reform, as well as anger over a burgeoning humanitarian crisis. As of Wednesday, some 8,500 Syrian refugees were lodged in tented camps on Turkey's side of the border. More have been arriving by the day. Syrian refugees who have fled to Turkey to escape a fierce military campaign staged protests in one of the camps in the town of Yayladagi, chanting “People want freedom!” and “Erdogan help us!” Speaking to journalists before meeting Erdogan in Ankara, Turkmani said the refugees would stay in Turkey for a “short period of time.” “Soon they will be returning. We have prepared everything for them, they have started returning.” President Assad asked to send an emissary when he called Erdogan Tuesday to congratulate him on winning a third term in office. Erdogan, who had a close rapport with Assad, had said before his re-election that, once the election was over, he would be talking to Assad in a “very different manner”, and expressed revulsion over repression being used against the Syrians. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu toured one of the refugee camps in Turkey's Hatay province, across from the Syrian city of Jisr Al-Shughour, just 20 km from the border. Media have been barred from entering the camps by Turkish authorities, who say any pictures of the Syrians could put them or their families in danger back home. A 36-year-old Syrian man in a street in Guvecci, who gave his name as Ahmed and refused to be filmed, gave a taste of what Davutoglu was likely to hear. “We decided to flee to Turkey after learning troops had arrived in Jisr Al-Shughour — I, my wife and six kids. We heard they were burning down the city, including the mosques,” he said. “”I don't plan to go back until the situation improves there. Some of my relatives were wounded during protests in Jisr Al-Shughour, one of them was shot in the foot, two were killed, one was shot in the head.”
