"Nobody now expects the (Syrian) people's demands to be met. We all want the Syrian administration, which is now on a knife-edge, to turn back from the edge of the cliff," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told a party meeting.
He also demanded an immediate apology following attacks on Turkey's diplomatic missions in Syria.
Non-Arab Turkey, after long courting Assad, has lost patience with its neighbor's failure to end an eight-month crackdown on protests against the president and implement promised democratic reforms.
"Right now we are supplying electricity there (Syria). If this course continues, we may have to review all of these decisions," Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told reporters.
Syria produces more electricity than it consumes and it has links with other countries such as Jordan and Lebanon so the impact of Turkey pulling the plug would probably be limited.
Speculating that cutting electricity is the leading indicator of economic sanctions is undercut by the admission that cutting electricity would be pointless. I'm no expert on power grids, but I'd think that cutting the links in a planned manner would be a good idea if Turkey attacks Syria. If not, could Syria send a surge back through the lines to burn out Turkey's grids in case of war?
It is difficult to make predictions. I freely admit that I'm seeing things in the news that fit a pattern that I think I see developing--a Turkish intervention to set up humanitarian safety zone enclaves along the border. It is all too easy to do that.
I guess all that I can say for sure is that Turkey is expressing increased frustration about Assad's regime who appears unwilling to do enough to ease that frustration, and that Turkey has the military power to do something about it; and allies and neighbors seem to be frustrated enough with Assad to either support Turkey or look away if intervention is either done quickly enough or doesn't exceed some level of force that would provoke anger in the Arab street over a Turkish intervention in the Arab world.
