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Turkish prime minister condemns the Bashar al-Assad regime and vows not to remain a bystander Syria’s former ally Turkey said on Tuesday it had started imposing sanctions on the regime of Bashar al-Assad and reiterated it will not remain a bystander in the face of a relentless military crackdown. “Oppressed, defenceless people are dying in serious numbers,” said Racip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister . “We cannot say ‘let these deaths continue’.” Erdogan did not specify the exact nature of the new sanctions but has previously hinted at a range of military and commercial measures. Erdogan, who has taken a regional lead in condemning Turkey’s restive southern neighbour, compared the actions of Assad to those of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ordered the Hama massacre in 1982 after an anti-regime rebellion. In a sign of the increasing support Ankara is giving to anti-regime dissidents, the highest-ranking officer to defect from the Syrian military on Tuesdayadmitted he was in southern Turkey. Colonel Riad al-Assad used the Turkish newspaper Anatolia to call on opposition forces inside Syria to close ranks and wait for the regime to collapse. Dissidents in the city of Homs fought pitched battles with security forces on Monday night in what some opposition leaders have cast as the most intense two-way violence of the six-month uprising. Syrian forces were earlier reported to have ousted opposition groups from an outlying region of Homs, known as Rastan. “It was serious fighting,” said opposition activist Wissam Tarif. “Things seem to be escalating in Homs.” For the past months activists in and around Homs have been seeking weapons and attempting to mount an armed fight-back against the regime. “We see them on the streets all the time,” said a worker at one of the city’s hospitals. “They are armed and they are fighting the regime when they can.” Activists said on Tuesday arrests had intensified since the weekend, with up to 3,000 people reported to have been recently detained. Opposition groups have alleged in recent days that regime officials have been attempting to intimidate them in some European capitals, including London and Paris. The French government on Tuesday said it would not tolerate harassment of protesters and said it had called in the Syrian ambassador to register a formal protest. Burhan Ghalioun, a Paris-based opposition figure, said three members of his family, his brother, nephew and niece, were abducted in Homs on Monday night. He feared his niece may have been killed. Meanwhile, the appointment of the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, was confirmed by the US Senate 18 months after he was nominated by Barack Obama – a contentious appointment opposed at the time by some politicians. Ford has been a vocal critic of Assad’s regime. His visit to Homs in the summer and to a key opposition activist late last week led to his convoy being attacked by regime supporters. A newspaper run by the ruling Baath party on Monday warned that Ford would face more “unpleasant incidents” if he continued to take a public stand against Assad. The US and Britain have said they will not advocate a Libyan-style military intervention in Syria and are instead banking on a range of sanctions against regime officials and public support for opposition groups to oust the regime, which they say has lost all legitimacy. Bashar Al-Assad Syria Turkey Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Europe Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk