By Zehra Melek Cat
ERZURUM, Turkey (AA) – Concrete evidence of the use of sarin gas in Syria’s Idlib attack on April 4 has been found, Health Minister Recep Akdag said on Tuesday.
“Sarin gas metabolite, isopropyl methylphosphonic acid, have been detected in blood and urine samples of the Syrian victims Sait Huseyin, Esme al-Hasan, Mohamed Avat and Ahmed al-Salih who is still getting medical treatment in Hatay,” Akdag told Anadolu Agency.
Akdag said the evidence had been confirmed by the Turkish Public Health Institution’s Chemical Warfare Agents Diagnosis and Verification Laboratory.
“Our laboratories identified the metabolite of this chemical warfare agent, sarin gas, in the urine of a Syrian citizen, Sait Hussein who lost his life [in the Idlib attack] by using two different methods.
“Our laboratory made the detection in accordance with the standards of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, confirming that sarin gas was used in Syria,” he said.
The chemical weapons attack by regime forces in Syria killed more than 100 civilians and injured some 500 more in the opposition-held province of Idlib on April 4.
A day later, Turkey invited the World Health Organization (WHO) to send its officials and experts to jointly probe reports of a deadly chemical attack in Syria.
WHO officials arrived in southern Adana province the same day to carry out autopsies on three Syrian bodies at the Adana Forensic Medicine Institute.
