* Turkey reserves right to say: Enough

* 24 reported killed after Friday prayers

* Saudi prince says Arab states won’t allow “massacre” (Updates death toll)

By Douglas Hamilton

BEIRUT, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Turkey warned Syria on Friday it would act to protect itself if a Syrian government crackdown on protesters threatened regional security and unleashed a tide of refugees on its borders.

At least 24 Syrians were shot dead as protesters took the streets following Friday prayers and ahead of a general strike called for Sunday, according to a network of anti-government activists reporting events to a website based in Britain.

Other activist sources put the toll as high as 37 dead.

Ten were killed in Homs, the hub of the nine-month-old revolt, where televised footage showed demonstrators against President Bashar al-Assad chanting “Syria wants freedom” and “Bashar is an enemy of humanity”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu did not say what action Ankara might take, but he made clear Turkey would not hesitate to insulate the region’s security from tumult in Syria. Turkey shares a 900 km (560 mile) border with Syria.

“Turkey has no desire to interfere in anyone’s internal affairs. But if a risk to regional security arises, then we do not have the luxury of standing by and looking on,” Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara.

Peaceful demonstrations calling for reform began in Syria in March, inspired by the Arab Spring, but were met almost from the outset by lethal force.

“If a government that is fighting its own people and creating refugees, is putting not only their own security at risk but also that of Turkey, then we have a responsibility and the authority to say to them: ‘Enough!’” Davutoglu said.

Adding to the condemnation, a senior Saudi prince said Arab states would not turn a blind eye to violence in Syria.

Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, seen as influential though no longer holding public office, told a conference in Vienna he believed the Arab League would not “sit back and allow the continued massacre of the Syrian people”.

Activists say about 4,600 Syrians have been killed in nine months of protest and violent state suppression. Hundreds have fled over the border to Turkey which has established refugee camps.

MISTAKES

President Assad says some “mistakes” may have occurred but casualties have been overwhelmingly from the security forces, targeted by “armed terrorist gangs” who are motivated and directed by unnamed foreign influences.

Syria has been hit by United States and European Union economic sanctions and suspended from the Arab League which is also threatening to impose sanctions.

Russia and China, however, have effectively blocked any similar move at the United Nations and Moscow is warning the West not to interfere in the affairs of its longtime Arab ally.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 28 demonstrations in southern Deraa province, calling for the overthrow of the government, on what protesters are calling the “Friday of the Strike of Dignity” planned over the weekend.

Security forces fired into a crowd outside the mosque in Al-Qusayr in Homs province, the Observatory said. Troops surrounded protesters as they came out of two mosques in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, and two children were killed in districts of Homs, the activist website reported.

State television also reported violence but gave a different account. It said a girl was shot by “terrorists” in Deraa and civilians wounded by “terrorist armed groups”.

UN WANTS ACCESS

Davutoglu has proposed that contingency plans be made for a buffer zone along the Syrian border should violence escalate to the point where a mass exodus is threatened.

The United Nations said it was impossible to assess the situation until Damascus admits humanitarian relief teams.

“I repeat my call to the Syrian government to really let us in,” said Valerie Amos, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, in Stockholm.

“If, as the government say, they have nothing to hide, then I think allowing us in to see that is the case and to do a proper assessment of what the implications of this are for the people of Syria is absolutely critical,” Amos said.

Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun said he had pressed the leader of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group of armed rebels, to cease offensive operations that could provoke civil war.

“We want to avoid a civil war at all costs,” he told Reuters in Vienna.

Assad this week denied all responsibility for civilian deaths and said he had given no shoot-to-kill order.

NATO wants him to step down. But Russia, China, Iran and Brazil, among others states, say the West should not interfere.

Syrian state television on Thursday aired confessions by “terrorists” bent on destabilising the country by attacking security forces, killing and sabotage.

It said they admitted making and planting bombs but did not elaborate on their alleged political motive for such attacks.

Anti-government activists say three unarmed civilians have died for every security force member killed since March. They say Syrian interrogators use torture to obtain confessions.

(Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Sylvia Westall in Vienna, Daniel Dickson in Stockholm, Dominic Evans and Laila Bassam in Beirut; editing by Rosalind Russell)

via WRAPUP 3-Turkey warns Syria not to provoke regional crisis | Reuters.

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — In this border town, not far from Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub, a busy Syrian consulate had been a symbol of the strong political and economic ties the two countries had shared for more than a decade.

But these days, a note now posted to its door is perhaps a better description of the Syrian-Turkish relationship: “The Gaziantap Syrian Arab Republic Consulate is closed until further notice.”

The closing of the consulate is just the latest in a series of events that has brought these two neighbors — which although have had a rocky history, have enjoyed close ties in recent years — worryingly close to conflict.

More from GlobalPost: Who is the Free Syrian Army?

Turkish-Syrian relations reached a new low after Turkey imposed sanctions on its once close ally last week.

Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of a violent crackdown against protesters by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces. The Turkish government has been diplomatically hammering the Assad government since the uprising began in earnest earlier this year, warning Assad to find a peaceful solution as early as August.

The economic sanctions, however, were the first concrete step Ankara has taken against Syrian, and now Damascus is firing back. The Syrian government, in retaliation, suspended a free trade agreement that had existed between the two countries since 2007.

The nine point list of sanctions aims to force the Assad regime’s hand financially. The sanctions include a a travel ban and the freezing of financial assets belonging to ket members of the Syrian government. Turkey also halted all transactions it conducts with the Syrian Central Bank and the Commercial Bank of Syria.

Under the sanctions, Turkish authorities said the country would prohibit the transport of all military equipment and weapons into Syria via Turkish territories. Turkey will also stop credit payments to Syria and will suspend a large loan that had been intended for infrastructure projects inside.

“In our opinion, by wasting all the opportunities offered to them, including the final opportunity of the Arab League, the Syrian administration has come to the end of the road,” said The Syrian Administration set the stage for this on its own,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a statement.

The sanctions last week came at the heels of an Arab League decision to implement its own sanctions on Syria and marked a dramatic change in strategy on behalf of Turkey, which had previously tried to convince its former ally to begin a reform process.

In August, Davutoglu traveled to Syria to deliver a message urging Assad to stop all military operations against its people. But despite the efforts, Assad has repeatedly rejected Turkey’s call for reform and recently rebuked an offer from the Arab League to send observers into Syria to assess the situation.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said that more than 4,000 people have likely been killed during clashes in Syria since demonstrations began in mid-March. Avaaz, an international human rights organization, said the number could be even higher.

“The economic sanctions will effect the businessmen in Syria who support Assad. It is a good step, it will effect the regime but it will not topple Assad,” said Halit Khodja, a member of the Syrian National Council, a broad-based opposition group outside Syria.

Khodja said that the opposition also hopes that Turkey and other countries in the region would institute a no-fly zone and other protections that would hinder the Syrian military.

“The next step needs to be a buffer zone and a no fly zone,” Khodja said. “But just pushing Turkey to the front lines would not be successful without international support,” he said.

Ankara has made clear that they will not pursue a no-fly zone or any other military actions without support from NATO or the United Nations.

Turkish criticism of the Assad regime has been building since more than 10,000 Syrian refugees, fleeing a military crackdown on protests in Jisr al Shugur, a city near the border, crossed into Turkey in June.

The Turkish government responded by establishing camps in the border town of Hatay. More than 7,000 refugees still remain in those camps and many more, who are staying with family or friends, are scattered throughout Turkey.

Although most of the refugees living in Hatay are civilians, some are members of the Free Syrian Army, a small group of military defectors who have begun to organize a small, but growing, armed rebellion. Last month, the group launched an unprecedented attack on a Syrian Air Force Intelligence base that is a symbol of the regime’s most-feared branch of security.

A defining moment in the breakdown in relations between the Turkey and Syria came in November when pro-Assad demonstrators attacked Turkish diplomatic missions in three Syrian cities. The supporters burned a Turkish flag and posters of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

“Bashar Assad should see the tragic end that meets leaders who declare war on their people,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after the attacks. “Oppression does not create order and a future cannot be built on the blood of the innocent. History will remember such leaders as those who fed on blood. And you Assad are headed toward opening such a page.”