Children massacred in Houla are ours, Erdoğan tells world

Speaking at a summit of the Alliance of Civilizations, a forum promoting understanding between the Western and Islamic worlds, days after more than 100 people were massacred in Syria's central Houla region, Erdoğan said these are “our children who were massacred in Hama, Homs and Houla, as much as they are the children of desperate Syrian families.”

He said the world should not remain silent in the face of “oppression.”

Turkey on Wednesday expelled Syria's charge d'affaires and other diplomats, joining an international campaign to isolate President Bashar al-Assad's regime after the Houla massacre. UN investigators have blamed pro-regime gunmen for at least some of the carnage in Houla, saying men in civilian clothes gunned down people in the streets and stabbed women and children in their homes. The Syrian government denied its troops were behind the killings and blamed “armed terrorists.”

Erdoğan said on Wednesday that the decision to expel Syrian diplomats was a response to the massacre of 110 people, including dozens of children, in Houla. “We could not remain silent in the face of this,” he said. “Remaining silent in the face of oppression, tolerating oppression, amounts to oppression itself.”

Speaking at the same summit, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also called on Syria to stop its attacks, saying UN observers monitoring the cease-fire were not there to watch the killing of innocent people.

“We are there to record violations and to speak out so that the perpetrators of crimes may be held to account,” Ban said at a summit of the Alliance of Civilizations, a forum promoting understanding between the Western and Islamic worlds, days after more than 100 people were massacred in Syria's central Houla region.

“The more the international community knows,” Ban said, “the more likely it is that we can advance on our most important goal: to help find a political solution, a solution that safeguards the lives and interests of all the Syrian people.”

“Let me state plainly, however: The UN did not deploy in Syria just to bear witness to the slaughter of innocents,” he said. “We are not there to play the role of passive observer to unspeakable atrocities.”

Ban said UN envoy Kofi Annan has expressed his concern that a “tipping point” may have been reached in Syria. “The massacre of civilians of the sort seen last weekend could plunge Syria into a catastrophic civil war -- a civil war from which the country would never recover,” Ban said. “I demand that the government of Syria act on its commitments under the Annan peace plan. A united international community demands that the Syrian government act on its responsibilities to its people.”

Ban urged nations to speak more loudly in “these difficult times, in the face of humankind's terrible capacity for inhumanity.”

“We hear a great deal about the so-called ‘clash of civilizations' -- the supposed rift between predominantly Muslim and Western societies,” he said. “That is not what is going on in Syria. There, it is the old story of a tyranny seeking to hold power. And in seeking to hold on to power, the regime threatens to exacerbate tensions among Syria's diverse people, much as we saw in the former Yugoslavia two decades ago.”