Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday told Syrian president President Bashar Al Assad’s envoy the regime must end a crackdown on protesters that it has called “savagery”. Assad’s envoy Hassan Turkmani met for almost three hours with Erdogan, who has voiced impatience over Assad’s tactics and slowness to reform, as well as anger over a mounting humanitarian crisis on Turkey's southern border.
Meanwhile, in Damascus, thousands of Assad supporters lined one of the capital’s main thoroughfares and lifted a 2,300-metre-long tricolour Syrian flag, while waving pictures of the president. State media said it was a demonstration of national unity and “rejection of foreign interference in Syrian internal affairs.”
In the east of Syria, tanks and armoured vehicles deployed in the city of Deir Al Zor and around Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq.
