Global Security Newswire, 9 Dec 2011.

The Turkish armed forces on Thursday rejected accusations that it had launched chemical arms strikes on Kurdish rebels, insisting it did not hold such weapons, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, 7 Nov).

The Turkish military General Staff said the accusations by the militant Kurdistan Workers Party were "baseless, biased and aimed at slandering the Turkish armed forces."

"There have been no chemical weapons or ammunition registered in the inventory of the Turkish armed forces," the Anatolia news agency quoted the General Staff as stating.

News reports in November carried accusations made by Kurdish activists and human rights workers that the military had deployed deadly chemical toxins against PKK guerrilla fighters in October, according to earlier reports.

Turkey is a member nation to the Chemical Weapons Convention and is not thought to have produced materials banned by the international accord, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (Agence France-Presse/News24.com, 8 Dec).

- Further reading

NPSGlobal: Turkey Alleged to Use Chemical Weapons on Rebels, 24 Aug 2010

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