ANKARA (BBC) - Turkey has warned the UN it may need help if the flow of refugees from Syria continues at its current rate.
After speaking to the UN secretary general, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the refugee issue was becoming an “international problem”.
Davutoglu said he had spoken to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon early on Friday to express concern about the rate of refugees.
In later televised remarks, Davutoglu said: “We have spared no efforts to accommodate Syrians fleeing the violence back home, but if they continue to arrive at this rate, we will need the UN and international community to step in.”
The UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has set out a six-point peace plan that Syria has accepted, part of which envisages a UN-supervised cessation of armed violence by all parties from 10 April, with a full ceasefire on 12 April.
However, the US and many regional countries have expressed scepticism that Syria is committed to the plan.
Syria lashed out at the UN high commissioner for human rights on Friday, accusing her of turning a blind eye to “terrorism” funded from abroad.
Citing a foreign ministry letter to Navi Pillay, state news agency SANA said her “bias against Syria has become evident as she turns a blind eye to terrorism targeting the Syrian people at the hands of armed groups with an external funding.”
The government has consistently blamed “armed terrorist gangs” for the anti-regime unrest that broke out in March 2011 and killed more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians.
Protests began peacefully but, in reaction to a fierce crackdown by government forces, the movement gradually took on a militant face and has evolved into an armed revolt led by army deserters.
SANA said Pillay “disregards the ample evidence of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the armed groups” and has chosen “instead to compile lies and fabrications and market them as if they were facts without bothering to verify them.”
It did not give specifics, but did say she remained “non-committal as regards 6,143 Syrian citizens killed by terrorist groups and 1,590 citizens who were kidnapped.”
In a BBC interview last month, Pillay said there was enough evidence to bring human rights charges against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad over the crackdown.
She said the president’s role as commander of the security forces left him responsible for their actions during the unrest. She accused the regime of systematically targetting children and argued the army’s use of heavy weapons against civilians in densely populated areas was a crime under international law.
Pillay said the UN Security Council now had enough reliable evidence to warrant a referral to the International Criminal Court.
The foreign ministry accused her of failing to stick “to objectivity and professionalism as it would have helped in preventing killing more Syrians.”
Specifically, it said she rejected “considering the acts of terrorist groups as crimes against humanity... and chose instead to level this accusation at the state, which is doing its duty in protecting its own people.”
The ministry said “Syria is committed to its responsibility in probing all allegations of human rights violations, but the commissioner hasn’t shared any of the allegations it received, nor has it worked to provide national or even peaceful solutions.”