Eurasia Press & News
Turkey’s foreign minister has said the use of chemical weapons deserves the harshest international intervention in line with the law, stressing that Turkey does not tolerate to any deployment or use of chemical arms.
Ahmet Davutoğlu told reporters on Friday that Turkey welcomes a Russian proposal for Syria to turn over its chemical weapons but said the previous use of chemical weapons should not go unpunished and urged the international community to act to stop the bloodshed in Syria that has now left more than 100,000 people dead, mostly civilians.
President Abdullah Gül also voiced similar concerns earlier this week, saying that the handover of the weapons should not be a tactical move to divert attention from the tens of thousands of people killed in the country.
Russia proposed a plan last week, which Syria and the United States both accepted, that would put President Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s chemical stockpile under international control before its eventual dismantling. The initiative — also cautiously endorsed by Britain and France — appeared to offer a way out of a crisis that raised the prospect of a US-led military action against Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack last month.
Davutoğlu has insisted that the Syrian regime must be punished for last month’s chemical weapons attack outside Damascus that killed more than 1,700 people, a figure the foreign minister provided.
