Turkey's President Abdullah Gul criticized the world's response to the Syria conflict on Thursday, May 16, as limited to "rhetoric", saying his country had received little help in coping with a huge influx of Syrian refugees.

"The international community's contribution to Turkey's financial aid to these people who are in a difficult situation is only symbolic," Gul told reporters in the border town of Reyhanli where car bombs killed 51 people at the weekend, according to Reuters.

Apart from hosting about 400,000 Syrian refugees, Turkey strongly backs the uprising against President Bashar Assad, but the Reyhanli bombings have increased fears of spillover from the two-year-old civil war in its southern neighbor.