Turkey says chemical arms use would escalate Syria crisis

Turkey said on Friday any use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would "take the crisis to another level", but remained cautious about any foreign military intervention in the conflict on its border. The White House said on Thursday Assad's government had probably used chemical arms on a small scale, but that President Barack Obama needed proof before he would act.
"We have been hearing allegations of the use of chemical weapons for quite some time now and these new findings take things to another level. They are very alarming," Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Levent Gumrukcu said. "Since the very first reports of chemical weapons being used in Syria emerged we have been asking for a thorough investigation by the United Nations to substantiate these reports. However, the Syrian regime has not allowed this."
Syria, which has so far denied access to UN investigators because of a dispute over their remit, denies firing chemical weapons and accuses anti-Assad rebels of using them. "This has been done by organisations, including al Qaeda, which threatened to use chemical weapons against Syria. They have carried out their threat near Aleppo. There were victims," Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said in Moscow. "The Syrian army does not have chemical weapons," Interfax news agency quoted Zoubi as saying.
He compared the UN mission with the UN inspectors sent to Iraq in the 1990s to check for weapons of mass destruction that former leader Saddam Hussein was suspected of accumulating. A decade ago US President George W. Bush used inaccurate intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq to destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that turned out not to exist. "Somebody is very keen to send an investigative commission to Syria similar to the one that used to work in Iraq and in the end led to its occupation and destruction," Zoubi said.
A once-fervent advocate of foreign intervention in Syria, Turkey has grown increasingly frustrated with the fractured opposition to Assad and with international disunity. Asked whether Turkey would allow foreign military action in Syria from its soil, Gumrukcu said the facts about chemical weapons usage needed to be substantiated first.
"Let's not jump to that right now, let's have a thorough investigation," he said, adding any response if the claims were verified would need to be discussed among the "Friends of Syria" grouping of the opposition's Western, Arab and other allies. The US disclosure created a quandary for Obama, who has set the use of chemical weapons as a "red line" Assad must not cross. It triggered calls from some hawkish Washington lawmakers for a US military response, which the president has resisted.