Turkey suspended all activities at its embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus today, the foreign ministry said, as the security situation in Syria deteriorated further.
Government forces once again bombarded the battered city of Homs with mortars in an effort to quell unrest. Video showed towering flames and thick black smoke billowing from at least two locations in Syria's third largest city, which has become the epicentre for the year-long revolt.
Residents accused the army of indiscriminate shelling."Every day the shelling goes on. The regime is wiping out the city," said Waleed Faris, an activist who lives in Homs.
Last year Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad he should quit, having lost patience with his former friend's refusal to end a violent crackdown on popular unrest over the past year.
Turkey is providing sanctuary to more than 16,000 Syrians who have fled the violence in their homeland, has given shelter to soldiers from the rebel Free Syrian Army, and allows the Syrian opposition to meet regularly in Istanbul.
On April 1st, Turkey will hold a meeting of the Friends of Syria grouping mostly Arab and Western governments, to find ways to pressure Dr Assad into halting his military clampdown, during which the country has drifted towards civil war.
Many of those governments closed their embassies in Damascus earlier this month.The meeting of foreign ministers will be held in Istanbul, where leading Syrian dissidents were gathering today and tomorrow in an attempt to bridge divisions within the opposition and instil confidence in the Syrian National Council umbrella organisation.
More than 50 countries were represented at the first meeting of the "Friends of Syria" group in Tunis in late February. Last week the foreign ministry called on all Turkish citizens in neighbouring Syria to return to Turkey as soon as possible, saying it planned to close the consular section of its Damascus embassy, which it did on March 22nd.
All embassy staff have been withdrawn, including the ambassador, who had recently returned to Damascus, having earlier been brought back to Ankara for many months as relations with Dr Assad's government turned icy.
Turkey, a Muslim member of Nato, has the second largest army in the Western alliance and has gathered increasing clout in the Middle East by siding with people rather than rulers during the uprisings that have shaken the Arab world since late 2010.
Turkish diplomats' families were brought home last year after an attack on the embassy by demonstrators who were angry that Turkey had taken sides against Dr Assad.