ANKARA: Turkey urged the UN to protect displaced Syrians inside their country yesterday. Thousands of Syrians have been fleeing their homes over the past weeks as fighting between Assad's forces and the opposition intensified.Ankara fears a mass influx such as the flight of half a million Iraqi Kurds into Turkey after the 1991 Gulf War, and has floated the idea of a "safe zone" under foreign protection within Syria for civilians fleeing intensifying violence.
"We expect the UN to engage on the topic of protecting refugees inside Syria and if possible sheltering them in camps there," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
France supports Turkey's call for a safe zone in Syria, and pressure for action increased after the UN refugee agency said that Syria's exodus was accelerating. Up to 200,000 people could settle in Turkey if the conflict worsens, the UNHCR said.
Davutoglu said refugee flows in the hundreds of thousands constituted a dangerous international problem.
Turkey already hosts more than 80,000 refugees and the UNHCR said up to 5,000 people a day had arrived there in the last two weeks. The refugee flow to Jordan has also doubled, it said.
Davutoglu spoke ahead of a UN Security Council meeting of foreign ministers expected to focus on Ankara's proposal.
"We are studying the issue of buffer zones," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who will chair today's meeting in New York, acknowledging the issue was "complicated."