Dubai: Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan yesterday likened the situation in Syria to Libya on a day Tunisia recalled its ambassador and the UN pulled out non-essential staff from the country.
"We have done our best on Libya, but haven't been able to generate any results ... Now the same situation is going on in Syria. I've sent my foreign minister, and personally got in touch many times, the last of them three days ago on the phone. In spite of all this, civilians are still getting killed," Erdogan said.
Recalling its envoy, the Tunisian foreign ministry said: "Given the dangerous situation in Syria, the Tunisian government has decided to recall its ambassador in Damascus for consultations."
Meanwhile, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said 26 non-essential international staff members and their families had left Syria as European countries, the US and Kuwait yesterday planned to ask the United Nations' top human rights body to hold a special session on Syria.
These developments came as the Syrian Interior Ministry announced yesterday that armed units were withdrawing from the port city of Latakia after quelling what it described as armed terrorist groups.
Syrian troops earlier raided houses in the besieged port, arrested hundreds and sent them to Sports City after a four-day tank assault.
Omar Lazkani, spokesman for the Coordination Committee of Peaceful Syrian Revolution, said 5,000 residents had fled to neighbouring villages.
"Shelling and the sound of machine guns was subdued today. They are busing hundreds to the Sports City from Al Raml. People picked up randomly from elsewhere in Latakia are also being taken there," said a resident, referring to a complex that was a Mediterranean Games venue in the 1980s.
