Egypt, Turkey Slam Syrian President

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad must learn from “recent history” and step down before it is too late, while the Turkish prime minister called Syria a “terrorist state” that carries out massacres against its own people.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad must learn from “recent history” and step down before it is too late, while the Turkish prime minister called Syria a “terrorist state” that carries out massacres against its own people.

Morsi told a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo Wednesday that a resolution to the crisis is an Arab responsibility, reiterating his call for the Syrian government to resign. He said the time has come in Syria for “change and not wasting time speaking of reform.”

Morsi also said a quartet of regional states proposed by Cairo to discuss the Syrian crisis would meet. The group includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt.

In Ankara, meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced further frustration at the lack of international consensus over the chaos in Syria. He told a meeting of his ruling AK party that Turkey does not “have the luxury to remain indifferent” to what is happening in Syria.

Erdogan also said Wednesday that Syria’s conflict had killed close to 30,000 people, including 2,200 children. He said some 76,000 people were missing. The Turkish leader said inaction by the U.N. Security Council and the international community was giving Syria the “strength to continue its massacre.”