Turkey blasts UN inaction to end Syrian civil war 

(MENAFN - Arab News) Turkey's prime minister sharply criticized the UN Security Council yesterday for its failure to agree on decisive steps to end Syria's civil war, as NATO ally Germany backed the Turkish interception of a Damascus-bound passenger jet earlier in the week.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an international conference in Istanbul that the world was witnessing a humanitarian tragedy in Syria.

"If we wait for one or two of the permanent members ... then the future of Syria will be in danger," Erdogan said.

He spoke as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with Arab and European leaders amid growing tensions between Turkey and Syria.

Davutoglu held talks early yesterday with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and UN envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. He told reporters after the meetings that Turkey was prepared to use force again if it was attacked.

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels shot down a fighter jet in Aleppo yesterday, a monitoring group and a military defector said.

"The rebels shot down the fighter jet in the west of Aleppo province, where fierce battles are taking place," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said. A defected military officer confirmed the reports, adding that the MiG jet was shot down some 10 km west of Aleppo.
In another development, opposition fighters claimed to have captured more than 250 members of the government's armed forces in Idlib.

The announcement yesterday was accompanied by amateur video showing 256 captured Syrian soldiers. "All we know is that these prisoners are from Az Zainiyeh," Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reported from Antakya.