The shells exploded after being fired into Akcakale from Tall al-Abyad in Syria, where forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are trying to put down an 18-month-old insurgency.
The dead are said to include a woman and her three children.
Nine other people were wounded.
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc was quoted as saying that Syria must be made to account for the incident and there must be a response under international law.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu contacted UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, the UN's Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen after the incident, his office said.
The minister cleared his schedule and chaired an emergency meeting at the foreign ministry, it added.
The US was "outraged" by the shelling, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Akcakale has been fired on several times over the past few weeks. Residents have been advised to stay away from the border, and more than 100 schools have been closed in the region because of the violence in neighbouring Syria.
Turkey's state-owned Anatolia agency reported that angry townspeople had marched to the mayor's office to protest about the deaths on Wednesday.
Town mayor Abdulhakim Ayhan said: "There is anger in our community against Syria," adding that stray bullets and shells had panicked residents over the past 10 days.
UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who is in Turkey on a trade and diplomatic visit, said he was "deeply concerned" by the casualties in Akcakale.
"We condemn all violence by the Syrian regime and demand that it avoids any repetition of today's incident on the border with Turkey," he said. "We welcome the measured response that Turkey has shown to the events on their border thus far."
Although Turkish territory has been hit by fire from Syria on several occasions since the uprising against President Assad began, Wednesday's attack is believed to be only the second time that people have died as a result.
Two Syrian nationals were killed on Turkish soil in April by stray bullets fired from Syria.
No comments:
Post a Comment