Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the media in Ankara April 5, 2012.

turkish-PM660

ANKARA: Shots fired from Syria at a Syrian refugee camp inside Turkey are a “clear violation” of the common border between the two countries, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.

“It was a very clear violation of the border,” Erdogan told reporters in Beijing, where he is on an official visit. “Obviously we will take the necessary measures,” he was quoted as saying by the Turkish news agency Anatolia.

On the Turkish border Monday, shots fired from inside Syria wounded four Syrians and two Turkish staff working at a refugee camp in the first case of Syrian fire hitting people on Turkish soil.

Erdogan said his country will “use its rights as granted by international law,” but did not specify whether Turkey was planning to establish buffer zones or open up humanitarian corridors into Syria, as floated by Turkish media.

The incident angered Ankara on the eve of a visit by international envoy Kofi Annan to the refugee camps along the border, while Washington said it condemned attacks on Syrian refugees in bordering countries.

Annan is expected at the Turkish-Syrian border Tuesday noon, as well as prominent US senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

A Lebanese television cameraman Ali Shaaban was killed inside Lebanese territory, also by Syrian gunfire.

Syria was facing a deadline Tuesday to withdraw its forces from urban areas after months of bloody clashes, with a peace accord brokered by UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan hanging by a thread Tuesday.

Syria's armed forces were supposed to withdraw from urban protest centres Tuesday, with a complete end to fighting designed to avert all-out civil war was scheduled to follow 48 hours later.

On Monday Washington said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had shown no sign so far that his government was sticking by the peace plan after signing on to the deal last week.

At least 105 people were killed on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said after weekend violence claimed almost 180 lives, most of them civilians.

Opinion

Editorial

UAE’s Opec exit
Updated 30 Apr, 2026

UAE’s Opec exit

THE UAE’s exit from Opec is another sign of the major geopolitical shifts that are reshaping the global order. One...
Uncertain recovery
30 Apr, 2026

Uncertain recovery

PAKISTAN’S growth projections for the current fiscal present a cautiously hopeful picture, though geopolitical...
Police ‘encounters’
30 Apr, 2026

Police ‘encounters’

THE killing of nine suspects by Punjab’s Crime Control Department across Lahore, Sahiwal and Toba Tek Singh ...
Growth to stability
Updated 29 Apr, 2026

Growth to stability

THE State Bank’s decision to raise its key policy rate by 100 basis points to 11.5pc signals a shift in priorities...
Constitutional order
29 Apr, 2026

Constitutional order

FOLLOWING the passage of the 26th and 27th Amendments, in 2024 and 2025 respectively, jurists and members of the...
Protecting childhood
29 Apr, 2026

Protecting childhood

AN important victory for child protection was secured on Monday with the Punjab Assembly’s passage of the Child...