Syrian Kurds Accuse Turkey of Supplying Terrorists with Chemical Weapons

Terrorist groups took advantage of the ceasefire to launch attacks against a Kurdish-controlled area near Aleppo in Northern Syria,” Redur Xelil said.

“The terrorists targeted a civilian district, where was once Syria’s biggest city, and has since become a key battleground. The shells emitted an “unnatural smell” and “yellow smoke” upon impact, indicating that chemical weapons were involved,” Xelil said.

 “Our sources inside the rebel groups have confirmed that toxic substances were used. We also have verified information that sarin gas was delivered to them from Turkey,” he added.

Kurdish deputies in the Turkish parliament have previously accused Ankara of supplying the ISIL and other terrorist groups inside Syria with chemical weapons, which are used both in their fight against the Syrian government and to pin responsibility for their deployment on the regime of President Bashar Assad.

In January, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department for issues on the nonproliferation said that Moscow believed the probability that militants from the ISIL used chemical weapons in Syria.

“Several times we have noted facts of the probable use of chemical weapons by ISIL militants and in a broader sense by radicals, beginning with the attack in (the Syrian city) of Khan al-Assal in March 2013 against government forces,” Mikhail Ulyanov said.

He said that Moscow called for investigations into information on the use of chemical elements by ISIL and their possible deliveries from Turkey, to include sarin gas.

“Since facts are shown in one direction, then we believe the probability that the weapons are being used by militants is very high,” Ulyanov said.

On December 14, Turkish CHP party member Eren Erdem said in an interview with the broadcaster RT that chemical weapon materials for the production of sarin gas were delivered to ISIL terrorist group in Syria via Turkey in 2013. According to Erdem, the Turkish authorities knew about these supplies.

Ankara failed to probe the shipment and a criminal case into the issue was unexpectedly closed earlier, despite abundant evidence which included wiretapped phone conversations between ISIL representatives and unnamed Turkish nationals.

Sarin is a lethal gas, classified by the UN Resolution 687 as a weapon of mass destruction and banned by the UN Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. By late October 2014, the OPCW declared nearly 98 percent of the chemical weapons in Syria have been removed and destroyed.