Four more members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have decided to close their embassies in Syria over its violent crackdown on mass protests against President Bashar Al-Assad. United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar follow in the footsteps of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the other two members of the six-nation grouping, which announced they were closing their embassies in Syria earlier in the week. GCC Secretary General Abdullatif Al-Zayani said in a statement that the move demonstrated a rejection of “the Syrian regime's continuing killing and tormenting of the unarmed Syrian people, its insistence on the military option and ignoring all efforts for a way out of the tragic situation lived by the brotherly Syrian people”. Zayani called on the international community to “take firm and quick measures to stop the killings, torture and blatant violation of the dignity of the Syrian people and their legitimate rights.” Meanwhile, Turkey Friday “strongly” urged thousands of Turkish nationals to leave Syria and said it was considering withdrawing its ambassador from the violence-wracked country. “Developments in Syria pose serious security risks for our nationals,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “Therefore it is strongly recommended that Turkish nationals currently in Syria leave and return home.” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government was mulling calling home the Turkish ambassador. “We are considering all options including the withdrawal of the ambassador from Syria,” Erdogan told reporters. The foreign ministry said it would be halting consular services by its Damascus embassy as of next Thursday, adding that its consulate in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria's second largest, would remain open for the time being. But a joint action to remove all ambassadors from Syria is not on the European Union's agenda for the moment. “The issue of diplomatic representation in the country is of course under constant review by the member states, but there is no common line at this time,” DPA quoted a spokesman for the bloc's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton as saying Friday. He was reacting to earlier press reports suggesting that Ashton would propose a collective withdrawal of ambassadors at a meeting next week of EU foreign ministers. Such suggestions are “totally wrong,” he insisted. Some EU countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, have closed their embassies.
