By Jonathon Burch
ANKARA, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Turkey urged the U.N. Security
Council on Friday to take “concrete action” after a deadly
attack in Syria in which it said chemical weapons had clearly
been used.
Syria’s opposition has accused government forces of gassing
hundreds of people near Damascus by firing rockets that released
deadly fumes over rebel-held suburbs. Damascus has dismissed the
allegation.
“There is nothing left to say now regarding the events that
are taking place in Syria, it is now time for actual concrete
action,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul told reporters in
Istanbul on Friday.
“The price of playing down the events and procrastinating
through diplomatic manoeuvring and trickery in the U.N. Security
Council will be very high.”
In a live television interview late on Thursday, Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan said it was “very obvious” chemical
weapons had been used in that attack.
“Some are still debating this, ‘was it like this, was it
like that?’ What do you mean ‘was it like this?’ There are no
bullets, no blood traces, no gunpowder, there is nothing. It is
very obvious and clear, everything is evident,” Erdogan said.
The United Nations stepped up demands on Syria for access to
rebel-held Damascus suburbs hit by the apparent poison gas
attack and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents said
they had sent tissue samples with couriers to try to get them to
a U.N. inspection team in the country.
President Barack Obama stressed on Friday that he would not
rush to embroil Americans in a costly new war.
Turkey, once an ally of Assad but now one of his fiercest
critics, has long been concerned about the possible use of
chemical weapons across its southern border and has repeatedly
criticised the U.N. Security Council for inaction.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met his British and German
counterparts in recent days to discuss the attack and telephoned
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the hope that
Tehran, an Assad ally, would lean on him to allow U.N.
inspectors access to the site.
(Additional reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian in London and
Nick Tattersall in Istanbul; Editing by Nick Tattersall and
Andrew Roche)
