Turkey accuses Syria of border violations Kofi Annan at a refugee camp in Turkey on Tuesday Turkey has accused Syria of violating its border and suggested to Damascus that a buffer zone within Syrian territory may be necessary as tension rises between the two neighbours. However, Ankara made it clear that this would be a last resort and that its focus was on diplomatic efforts at the UN as well as practical steps to help the stream of people crossing over from Syria. The comments by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, came after Ankara said Syrian forces had fired into a refugee camp on the Turkish side of the border on Monday, wounding two Syrian nationals, a Turkish translator and a policeman. "There was a clear border violation," Mr Erdogan told reporters in China, where he is on an official visit. We will take the necessary measures, we will take the prerogatives that international law permits when borders are violated. The prime minister has sent Ahmet Davutoglu, his foreign minister, back to Ankara from China to deal with the aftermath of the shooting, already the subject of a formal complaint to Syria. In a separate incident, two refugees died and many others were wounded on Turkish territory on Monday after having been shelled in Syria itself. Asked whether Turkey would set up a buffer zone within Syria - a frequent object of speculation in recent months - Mr Erdogan suggested that Damascus and also Russia might have to change their behaviour to avoid such an outcome. "Syria needs to take the necessary steps in order not to force us" to take measures Turkey does not want to carry out, he said. Referring to Moscow's veto this year of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria, he added: "Now we are telling Russia what needs to be told," noting that some 25,000 Syrian refugees were sheltering on Turkish territory at a cost of about $150m. "If this reaches 100,000 people, we can't start building container camps after they come . . . you need to take precautions beforehand," Mr Erdogan said. You can't close the door on these people. Turkey has suggested that it may need help from the UN in accommodating the refugees, who came across the border last week at a faster rate than at any time during the crisis. But Mr Erdogan made clear that Ankara was now looking for a new initiative from the UN to replace the plan put forward by Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, which had been intended to come into force on Tuesday. Mr Annan, who visited refugee camps in Turkey on Tuesday, insisted that his plan had not failed, although he acknowledged it had not been implemented on schedule. "The plan is very much alive," he told a press conference in the Turkish border province of Hatay, adding that if it was taken off the table, "what would you replace it with?" Arguing that there was still time, he called on the world's governments to put pressure on Damascus to do implement the plan's requirements. Turkish commentators suggested that Ankara could respond to the rising tension by sending more troops to the border area but the government has long signalled its reluctance to implement a buffer zone or a "humanitarian corridor" within Syria as a unilateral step. Some officials fear that embarking on such a move unilaterally could leave the military exposed in a foreign country without a clear exit plan and deepen regional tensions with not just Syria but also Iran, Damascus's chief ally. However, there has been little indication that either the Arab League or the UN is likely to give approval to a buffer zone or a similar plan.