Turkey rejects allegations that chemical weapons have been sent to neighboring Syria via Turkey

The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected allegations that chemical weapons have been sent to neighboring Syria via Turkey, saying the charges are “impossible to take seriously.”

“It is out of the question that we show the slightest tolerance for the use, possession and production of chemical weapons,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Gümrükçü told a press briefing in Ankara. “We consider [the use of] chemical weapons a crime against humanity like every other weapon of mass destruction. Therefore, it is out of the question that they are produced in Turkey.”

Allegations that chemical weapons have been smuggled into Syria for use by anti-regime opposition forces have surfaced after reports in late May that 12 people detained on suspicion of being members of a terrorist organization in the southern province of Adana were in possession of two kilograms of nerve agent sarin. Authorities later said the chemical material seized was not sarin gas. An indictment recently prepared on the May detentions claimed that the suspects were seeking to obtain chemical materials used for the production of sarin.