Video footage showed thousands of people, mostly women, children and the elderly, massing at the Bab al-Salam border crossing.
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As many as 35,000 Syrians had massed along the closed border in the last 48 hours, a Turkish official said Saturday, according to The Associated Press.
Another 75,000 Syrians could be expected if Russian air strikes and Syrian regime military advances continued in Aleppo province, he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country would continue to keep its borders open to those fleeing the fighting, but there was some question about how open the borders actually were.
OCHA spokeswoman Linda Tom said that in addition to the thousands at the border, another 10,000 people were estimated to have been displaced to the Kurdish town of Afrin, elsewhere in northern Aleppo.
Refugees are fleeing the country by the thousands, most recently escaping fighting in the city of Aleppo.
One Syrian stuck at the border, Muhammed Idris, said: “Before, Tayyip Erdogan was saying on TV that Syria and Turkey are brothers, but now he is not opening the doors”.
“Any ground intervention on Syrian land without the agreement of the Syrian government is an act of aggression… we regret that those [who invade] will return to their countries in coffins, “he said”.
On the other side, rebels are refusing to disclose their causalities but local eyewitnesses estimate that Al-Nusra Front, the affiliate of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria lost over 200 fighters and the FSA lost another 70 in one of the worst recorded losses for rebel in the five- year conflict.
Government-controlled parts of Aleppo are home to more than a million people, while around 350,000 live in opposition-held areas.
A larger issue is the fact that the carefully-designed Russian-Syrian offensive this week has cut off the main supply routes from Turkey into the rebel-held areas of Aleppo.
Turkish news site Daily Sabah on Saturday reported that up to 110,000 people were headed towards the border in what has been dubbed the biggest refugee exodus from the area since unrest began in 2011.
“I can say, from the achievements for our armed forces… that we are now on track to end the conflict”, he said.
In November, the European Union clinched a deal with Turkey, offering it £2.3 billion to care for Syrian refugees on Turkish soil.
Foreign Minister Walid al Moualem’s warning followed reports Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which both support rebel forces, could send in troops if the US-led coalition against terror group Islamic State decided on ground action.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier-General Mohsen Ghajarian has been killed in Aleppo province, as had six Iranian volunteer militiamen.
Russia’s Defense Ministry meanwhile said it had “reasonable grounds” to suspect that Turkey, another opposition ally, is making intensive preparations for a military invasion of Syria. In recent months, only limited numbers of Syrians have been allowed to cross.
Al-Moallem said the Syrian government was ready to have dialogue with Syrians, but without preconditions. While no longer the bustling commercial centre that it once was, Aleppo and the surrounding villages are still home to half a million Syrians and remain the nerve centre for Syrian opposition activity.
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“The talks have been weakened by the fact that Turkey went out of its way to block the participation of Syrian Kurds”, Churkin said.
