Istanbul (CNN) -- The Turkish prime minister plans to huddle with a special Syrian envoy on Wednesday in an effort help stem the growing tide of refugees racing into Turkey from conflict-wracked Syria.
The number of Syrians who've crossed the border now stands at 8,421, according to Turkey's disaster and emergency management directorate. That flight has been spurred by violence and a military offensive in the conflict-scarred country, and Turkey is worried that the border crisis could deteriorate and destabilize the region.
"It is impossible for us to remain indifferent to the developments there," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters.
"For us, the Syrians are people who have common future and destiny with us. Therefore, it is out of question to close the door to our Syrian brothers or the (refugee numbers) to stop after 10,000. However, when this turns into a big wave, it also has the potential to become a regional and an international matter."
Syrian security personnel have been carrying out a fierce crackdown against anti-government demonstrators over the past three months. Amnesty International says more than 1,100 people have died.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be meeting with the envoy, who is expected to provide an assessment of the refugee situation and the wider political unrest in Syria, an official from Erdogan's office told CNN.
The envoy represents Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the meeting follows a telephone conversation Erdogan and al-Assad had on Tuesday.
Davutoglu, who spoke to journalists at the airport in Ankara before flying to Hatay for a visit with the refugees, said Turkey hopes to initiate reforms that would alleviate the volatile conditions leading to the flight of ordinary citizens. He planned to attend the meeting between Erdogan and the Syrian envoy after his visit to Hatay.
Davutoglu said "escalating violence can increase the refugee wave" and Turkey is working on ways "to prevent escalation of violence."
His government touts a foreign policy dubbed "no problems," a strategy to promote good relations with its neighbors, and the Syrian situation has become a challenge for that policy.
Turkey fears a repeat of the enormous Kurdish refugee exodus from northern Iraq in 1991, and the country has spent the last decade promoting cozy relations and lucrative economic ties with Syria's al-Assad.
Over the last month, Erdogan began calling for reform in Damascus in a bid to curb the escalating violence.
"We hope that Syria changes its attitude towards the civilians to a more tolerant one and realize its steps for reform in a more convincing way for the civilians," Erdogan said last week, according to the semi-official Anatolian Agency.
Davutoglu said that Turkey's "wish and effort is for a process to begin at once that can prevent such a wave to continue increasingly."
He pointed to "reforms to be made as soon as possible, conditions to be eliminated that bring security forces and people against each other and to have a more peaceful approach, beyond focusing on security, in the attitude towards the civilian people. If all these were provided, the refugee wave would lessen."
Of the refugees, 4,368 are children and 73 Syrians are now being treated in Turkish hospitals, the emergency directorate said. More than 1,230 tents have been set up in a number of locations.
Actress Angelina Jolie, a longtime goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency, has submitted an application to visit the refugees in Turkey, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal confirmed to CNN by phone. He says the government is "evaluating" the request.
Many displaced Syrians have fled toward the border but have not made it over. CNN's Arwa Damon met with some of them at a makeshift campsite on Tuesday in Syria, and they described terrible conditions at the site and frightening and deadly violence.
Many of the refugees have fled from a region that includes Jisr al-Shugur, seized by the Syrian military over the weekend, a network of human rights activists said.
The Syrian government insists it is stopping "armed terrorist groups" who carried out a "massacre" in the city -- the killing 120 members of the security forces.
Opposition activists say the government's claims are a ruse to justify a crackdown on demonstrators demanding government reform, in keeping with the wave of political protests across the Middle East and North Africa this year.
But Syrian refugees who have fled to Turkey said some Syrian soldiers rebelled after being ordered to fire on unarmed protesters and instead started fighting among themselves.
Syria's Cabinet on Tuesday hailed efforts by the army and security forces to restore calm in the Jisr al-Shugur area and surrounding villages, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.
Adnan Mahmoud, the information minister, said the Cabinet urged citizens "who were forced to leave their homes to come back after calm and security were restored in the area," SANA said.
The minister said the Cabinet "assigned the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to contact the Turkish Red Crescent for cooperation to facilitate the Syrian citizens' return to their homes, noting that all necessary needs will be provided to secure the return, including medical aid for the patients and the injured."
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