Turkey Says Wounded Syrians Showed Signs Of Chemical Attack

[HuffingtonPost]

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi                

AMMAN, May 10 (Reuters) - Syrian casualties treated in  Turkey show signs of being victims of chemical weapons, the  Turkish foreign minister said on Friday, adding to indications  that President Barack Obama's "red line" on the use of such arms  may have been crossed.                

Wary of the false intelligence used to justify the 2003 war  in Iraq, the United States says it wants proof that chemical  weapons have been used before taking any action in Syria.                

But if the evidence is confirmed it would increase the  possibility of Western intervention against Syrian President  Bashar al-Assad to stop the two-year civil war, even as the  United States and Russia try to bring the sides to peace talks.                

Turkey confirmed last week it was testing blood samples from  Syrian casualties brought over the border to determine whether  they had suffered a chemical weapons attack.                

"We have been making tests and we have some indications  regarding chemical weapons being used, but in order to make sure  and verify we are continuing these tests and will be sharing  these tests with U.N. agencies," Foreign Minister Ahmet  Davutoglu said in the Jordanian capital Amman on Friday.                

"We know the Syrian regime has stocks .. And everybody knows  the Syrian regime has this capacity," Davutoglu said. "Of course  this has been one of our major concerns because chemical weapons  are a threat against humanity and a crime."                

Obama said in August he viewed the use of chemical weapons  in Syria as a "red line". Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan  said that line had been crossed a "long time ago".                

"There are patients who are brought to our hospitals who  were wounded by these chemical weapons," he told NBC television.  "You can see who is affected by chemical missiles by their  burns."                

Erdogan is due to meet Obama in Washington on May 16.                

The U.S. president this week did not rule out action,  military or otherwise, against Assad's government, but  repeatedly stressed he would not be pressured prematurely into  deeper intervention in Syria.                

While Syria denies using chemical weapons, U.S. government  sources said blood and soil samples indicate the use of the  banned nerve agent sarin. It was not clear yet though whether  local commanders or the government had ordered its use.                                

FEAR AS ASSAD MOUNTS OFFENSIVE                

As the outside world deliberates, the conflict which has  killed 70,000 people rages on unabated.                

Twenty-five people were killed when the army shelled the  central Syrian town of Halfayeh on Friday, opposition activists  said. Video posted on the Internet showed panic-stricken  residents attempting to cross a river to escape the bombardment.                

What started as a series of peaceful protests against Assad  spiralled into civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim insurgents  against members of Assad's Alawite sect and other minorities.                

Insurgents have seized many rural parts of Syria, most of  the northern city of Aleppo and are pressing in on the capital  Damascus, but Assad's forces have launched a fierce counter  offensive in the past few weeks.                

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on  Friday she was concerned by reports of a major military build-up  by army and pro-Assad militia around the town of Qusair, near  the Lebanese border.                

Pillay said residents in Qusair feared a possible repeat of  last week's events in the coastal village of Baida and the town  of Banias in which activists said more than 100 people,  including small children, were killed in a government advance.                

"I am appalled at the apparent killing of women, children  and men ... which seem to indicate a campaign targeting specific  communities perceived to be supportive of the opposition,"  Pillay said.                

Russia has supported Assad's government and supplied it with  weapons, but agreed with the United States this week to help  bring the sides together for an international peace conference.                

Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister  David Cameron agreed on Friday to work towards a transitional  government in Syria, despite acknowledging differences in their  approach to the Middle Eastern country's civil war.                

Cameron said international efforts envisaged "not just  bringing the regime and opposition together at one negotiating  table, but Britain, Russia, America and other countries helping  shape a transitional government that all Syrians can trust to  protect them."                

Russia has been under pressure to cooperate more with  Western powers at the U.N. Security Council to end the war.                

"We have a common interest in the quickest end to the  violence and the initiation of a peace process, and the  preservation of Syria as a territorially whole sovereign state,"  Putin said after talks with the British prime minister.         (Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Tom Miles in  Geneva and Denis Dyomkon in Sochi; Writing by Jon Hemming;  Editing by Michael Roddy)

Via: HuffingtonPost