Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Turkey and Germany have agreed on a set of steps to halt the flow of refugees from Syria, including a joint diplomatic initiative to stop the onslaught against Aleppo, the Associated Press reports.

Davutoglu said during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the two countries would also carry out "joint efforts" for greater NATO involvement in the refugee issue. He said they would seek the use of NATO's observation capabilities at the border with Syria and in the Aegean Sea.

Merkel said, in turn, that she's "not just appalled but horrified" by the suffering caused by Russian bombing in Syria.

Merkel, speaking Monday, February 8, after a meeting with Turkey's Prime Minister, said that Turkey and Germany will push at the United Nations for everyone to keep to a UN resolution passed in December that calls on all sides to halt without delay attacks on the civilian population.

She said: "We have been, in the past few days, not just appalled but horrified by what has been caused in the way of human suffering for tens of thousands of people by bombing — bombing primarily from the Russian side."

Davutoglu said the Syrian city of Aleppo "is de facto under siege. We are on the verge of a new human tragedy."