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Turkey's patience running out on Syria, warns Erdogan

ISTANBUL, February 11, 2016

Turkey will be patient up to a point over the crisis in Syria and will then be forced to take action, President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech to a business forum on Thursday.

Erdogan also said Iran-backed forces in Syria were carrying out "merciless massacres" and that the United Nations needed to do more to prevent "ethnic cleansing" in the country.

His speech in Ankara was broadcast live on television.

The warning from Erdogan came on a day when the Guardian newspaper reported that in the five years of civil war, 400,000 Syrians have been killed and another 70,000 have perished due to a lack of basics such as clean water and healthcare.

With those injured in the confict, that amounts to more 11 per cent of the population, it said, citing the Syrian Centre for Policy Research.

About 400,000 of the deaths were directly due to violence, while 70,000 died because they didn't have proper healthcare, medicine, clean water or housing, stated the Guardian report.

It said 1.9 million people had been wounded. Life expectancy has dropped from 70 in 2010 to 55.4 in 2015. Overall economic losses are estimated at $255 billion, it added.-Reuters




Tags: Syria | Turkey | Erdogan |

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