Turkey: Syria autopsies show chemical weapons used in attack

BEIRUT — Turkey’s justice minister says the results from autopsies conducted on three Syrians brought to Turkey after this week’s assault in Syria’s Idlib province that killed 86 people show the victims were subjected to a chemical weapons attack.

The statement comes as international outrage is growing over the harrowing attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria. In France, the country’s foreign minister called for President Bashar Assad’s government to be prosecuted over its alleged use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has denied it carried out any chemical attack on the town in Idlib.

In Turkey, state-run Anadolu and the private DHA news agencies quotes Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag as saying that “it was determined after the autopsy that a chemical weapon was used.”

Turkish officials say that close to 60 victims of the attack were brought to Turkey for treatment and three of them died.

Tuesday’s attack happened just 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Turkish border, and the Turkish government — a close ally of Syrian rebels — set up a decontamination center at a border crossing in the province of Hatay, where the victims were initially treated before being moved to hospitals.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory on the town’s eastern outskirts.

— AP