Erdogan: Al-Assad will pay heavy price

Turkey's prime minister delivered one of his most virulent attacks yet against Bashar al-Assad on May 5, calling the Syrian president a "murderer" and warning that he would be held to account for the deaths of tens of thousands of his citizens. "If God permits, we will see this criminal, this murderer, receive his judgment in this world, and we will be grateful to [God] for it," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. "Hear me, Bashar al-Assad. You will give an account for this. You will pay a very, very heavy price for [only] showing the courage you cannot show others to the babies in the cradle with soothers in their mouths. God willing, the lamentations of these children will fall upon you as blessed revenge," he said during a gathering of his ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) consultation gathering in Kizilcahamam, near Ankara. Erdogan's harsh words came a day after a new massacre was reported by activists in a Sunni town near Banias in Syria's western Alawite enclave. Erdogan emphasized that Turkey would shy away from asking al-Assad to step down. "We do not resemble other nations. We are not a nation that will keep silent in the name of balances, conjunctures or interests," he said. "For our Syrian brothers who are asking when God's help will come, I want to say: God's help is near."