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Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu confers with United Arab Emirates' Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan during the Friends of Syria Conference in Tunis

Ankara is turning up the pressure on Damascus over its ongoing crackdown on dissent. The Turkish foreign minister hosted an international meeting on mediation of conflicts on Saturday in Istanbul and has warned the country’s patience is running out over the ongoing violence in Syria.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu expressed growing frustration and impatience with the United Nations for its failure to intervene to try and stop the ongoing bloodshed in Syria.

We have seen the U.N. is sometimes too late in making the necessary interventions and sometimes loses time with internal discussions, he said, adding that Arab countries and Turkey had presented a joint resolution on Syria that was vetoed by the Security Council and he said this has created a major discussion on the functioning of the U.N.

Ankara strongly condemned Moscow’s and Beijing’s veto earlier this month of a U.N. Security Council motion aimed at punishing Damascus over its ongoing crackdown on dissent.   On Saturday, Davutoglu warned that if the situation in Syria continues, Ankara may have to consider other options than diplomacy.

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