Turkey halting joint oil exploration with Syria, threatens to cut energy supplies

Turkey said on Tuesday it was halting joint oil exploration with Syria and would consider cutting energy supplies to its one-time ally following attacks on Turkish diplomatic missions in three Syrian cities.

“Right now we are supplying electricity there (Syria). If this course continues, we may have to review all of these decisions,” Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told reporters.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Syria’s leadership was offered a last chance to stop its violent repression of anti-government protests but rejected it.

“We have given a last opportunity to the Syrian regime but they didn’t want to seize it,” Davutoglu said in the Moroccan capital. Turkey wants “sanctions with an impact that spares harm to the Syrian people,” he said through an interpreter.

The White House, meanwhile, said that Turkish criticism of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had deepened the isolation of his regime.

“We very much welcome the strong stance Turkey has taken,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters traveling with President Barack Obama to Asia. “Turkey's comments today further point to the fact that President Assad is isolated,” he said.

Turkey, once a close ally of Damascus, has been exporting electricity to Syria since 2006.

Yildiz also said that Turkey’s Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) has stopped exploration with the Syrian national oil company in six wells, according to the Anatolia news agency.

The minister’s remarks come in the wake of weekend attacks on Turkish diplomatic missions in three Syrian cities.

Thousands of pro-regime protestors armed with knives and batons attacked the missions in Damascus as well as the cities of Aleppo and Latakia on Saturday over Turkey’s support for an Arab League decision to suspend Syria.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier Tuesday that Ankara had abandoned hope that Syria would respond to international demands to halt violence and initiate democratic reforms.

Erdogan, once a close political ally and a personal friend of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, has for months expressed frustration at Assad’s failure to listen to his people as the death toll in Syrian mounts.