Turkey Says It Destroyed Key Syrian Chemical Weapons Facility Near Aleppo

Via AlMasdarNews.com,

Damascus has denied Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claims about destroying a chemical weapons facility or warehouse in northern Aleppo this week.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) denied the existence of such a facility, accusing the Turkish President of “practicing a policy of misinformation.”

The agency noted that had the Turkish President’s allegations been correct to destroy a chemical facility 13 km south of Aleppo, there would have been a large number of deaths in the surrounding areas.

“Everyone knows that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed in its reports that Syria does not have any chemical facilities,” they added.

Turkish media had previously claimed Saturday: 

Turkey has destroyed a chemical warfare facility in northwest Syria in an overnight attack, said a Turkish official Saturday.

The Turkish army destroyed overnight “a chemical warfare facility, located some 13 kilometers south of Aleppo, along with a large number of other regime targets,” the senior official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The Turkish President announced in a speech during his participation in a meeting with the deputies of his Justice and Development Party in Istanbul, the destruction of chemical warehouses belonging to the Syrian government, noting that “we did not want to reach this point, but the regime forced us to treat it with this method.”