Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu publicly expressed concern for the first time on May 7 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is taking steps to divide the country. 

Speaking to the Turkish media on Tuesday [May 7] in London, Davutoglu argued that Assad has attacked the Sunni population in Baniyas to cleanse this part of the land for Alawite domination. "The Syrian regime is trying to clear a corridor between Homs and Lebanon," said Davutoglu. "In the Baniyas massacre, what concerns us is this: Considering that it's not possible to control the whole country, [Assad] has switched to a strategy of ethnically cleansing some areas, and to gain power there. This is what's discussed as plan B on the agenda, a strategy built upon ethnically cleansing [a part of the land] to open space and corridor for a certain sect."

Four years after being sworn in as Turkey's Foreign Minister though, Davutoglu still speaks like an academician assessing the events on the ground as if his policies carry no responsibility in the making of this chaos. "The Syrian regime has followed four stages," he said he explained to US Secretary of State John Kerry on their Monday [May 6] telephone conversation. "During the first stage, snipers targeted peacefully demonstrating people. This went on till March 2011. On the second stage, he punished a city all together by artillery and tank fire. Like in Hama, Homs, and Bab-i Amr, people started to react to that. Once the rebellion spread to cities, and neighborhoods, he moved on to the third stage, and started to use air power. The rebels moved to urban areas. Now he is at the fourth stage and firing Scud missiles [on the people.] All this escalation was for taking control of the whole country."

In the meantime, Turkey has worked with the Saudis and Qataris and allowed its near 800 km-long border with Syria to be used from the very beginning by the Syrian rebels to transfer arms into the country, and helped make an already bad situation worse. The Syrian regular army surely has a clear advantage over the rebels, but the more the opposition is provided arms, the more Assad kills. And it's even more of a contrast for Davutoglu to speak about human rights as a priority when he allowed Saudis and Qataris to infiltrate weapons and support all the radical and Salafist groups to gather for their selfish interests in Syria, as neither of the countries can honestly talk about their human rights record.