The nationwide demonstrations and rioting following the brutality by Turkish police last weekend toward demonstrators trying to prevent the destruction of age-old trees in Gezi Park, adjoining Istanbul’s famous Taksim Square, could not have come at a better time for Syria’s internationally beleaguered president, Bashar al-Assad, and at a worse time for his nemesis, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

There is of course no immediate comparison between the two situations given that tens of thousands have been killed while hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been left homeless as refugees in Syria. That, however, did not prevent members of the Assad regime from immediately trying to capitalize on the violence in Turkey to propagandist advantage.

In a June 3 statement carried by Reuters, the Syrian Foreign Ministry, in what must be considered the height of cynicism, cited the “the violence practiced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan against peaceful demonstrators” and warned Syrians against traveling to Turkey for the sake of their own safety. A day earlier, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Soubi had called on Erdogan to step down, indicating that the Turkish people did not deserve such “barbarity.”

Reuters quoted Soubi as saying, “The demands of the Turkish people don’t deserve all this violence,” and adding, “If Erdogan is unable to pursue non-violent means, he should resign.” Syrian officials must be aware that this is highly transparent tit-for-tat given that their remarks echo what Erdogan called on Assad to do when Syrian demonstrators took to the streets of Damascus in March 2011.