A man checking an apartment in a damaged building at site of a blast in the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province, near the Turkish-Syrian border yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Syria’s Information Minister has blamed Turkey’s government for deadly car bombings near the Syrian border and branded Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a “murderer”, state-run Russian TV company RT reported yesterday.

The bombings took place as prospects appeared to improve for diplomacy to try to end the war in Syria, after Moscow and Washington announced a joint effort to bring government and rebels to an international conference as soon as possible.

“All responsibility for what has happened lies with the Turkish government and Erdogan personally,” RT quoted Omran Zubi as saying in an interview with its Arabic-language channel.

“I demand his resignation as a murderer and an executioner. He has no right to build a political career on the blood of the Turkish and Syrian people,” RT quoted Zubi as saying.

It said he repeated a denial of Syrian involvement in car bombings that killed 46 people on Saturday in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. Turkey has accused a group with links to Syrian intelligence of carrying out the attacks.

The car bombs increased fears that Syria’s civil war, in which a Syrian opposition group says more than 82,000 people have been killed since it began with a government crackdown on protests in March 2011, is dragging in neighbouring states.

I demand his resignation as a murderer and an executioner. He has no right to build a political career on the blood of Turkish and Syrian people

The US-Russian peace initiative, which followed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, has touched off a flurry of diplomacy.

The Kremlin said Putin will discuss Syria and other issues with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Russia today. An Israeli official confirmed Netanyahu’s trip.

Israel has asked Russia not to sell Syria an advanced air defence system, the S-300, which would help President Bashar al-Assad fend off any foreign military intervention, though the United States and Nato have shown little appetite for that.

Russia vehemently opposes military intervention in Syria and criticised Israeli air strikes this month that Israeli sources say were aimed solely at preventing advanced weaponry getting to the Iranian-backed Hizbollah group, an Assad ally, in Lebanon.

Russia, a traditional arms supplier to Damascus, says it is fulfilling longstanding contracts for air defence weaponry but has not specified whether it would supply Syria with the S-300.

A Russian official said Lavrov would meet Kerry again on the sidelines of an Arctic forum in Sweden this week.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he had been heartened that talks he held with Putin on Friday showed “a recognition that it would be in all our interests to secure a safe and secure Syria with a democratic and pluralistic future and end the regional instability”.

Russia has been Assad’s strongest protector in the conflict, opposing UN sanctions and, along with China, blocking three Western-backed Security Council resolutions on Syria.

Russia has agreed with Western powers that Syria needs a transitional government. It says it is not trying to prop up Assad but that his exit must not be a precondition for talks.

Meanwhile also yesterday Turkey’s military said it had lost one of its F-16 fighter jets near Osmaniye, about 50 kilometres from the border with Syria, but NTV television quoted military sources as saying the crash had probably been an accident.

Last June, Syria shot down a Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet off the Syrian coast.

It said it had acted in self defence without knowing that the jet was Turkish, although Turkey said the plane had been identifiable and in international airspace.

There was no immediate word on what precisely happened to the F-16 yesterday, although the military said in a statement that the pilot had radioed to say he was ejecting. The sources quoted by NTV said it now appeared likely that the loss of the plane was an accident.

Relations between the two countries have been strained ever since Turkey fell out with President Bashar al-Assad over his violent response to what began as a peaceful protest movement and then became an armed rebellion.

Turkey now harbours Syrian rebel forces and refugees on its territory, and has called for Assad’s departure.