Turkish MFA Denies Al-Qaeda Support

On April 6, 2014 at the 992nd meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council, the Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman while responding to a question about Syria called the statements of the Armenian Ambassador regarding the situation around Kesab, Syria as "shameful" and "baseless."

The official statement of the Turkish MFA says that "on OSCE Permanent Council's 27 March 2014 dated meeting Permanent Representative of Armenia made unrealistic claims and committed outrageous slander by saying that Turkey based members of Al-Qaeda terrorist organization attacked Latakia/Kesab region of Syria. Our Permanent Representative, made a comment to point out that such allegations are unfounded, and he emphasized that Turkey has been providing humanitarian aid to civilians affected by the civil war in Syria and Turkey is the most afflicted county from the terror that is coming from Syria."

In the same announcement, the bombing in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli near Syria in May 23, 2013 is being brought as an example of such "terror", for which the Turkish government accuses Damascus. 

On March 21, Syrian rebel groups seized the majority Armenian populated Syrian border town of Kesab after a large scale attack from beyond Syria's borders from Turkey to the north -- which also involved the shooting down of a Syrian aircraft by the Turkish military on the same day. 

“The Armenian delegation expresses its grave concern over the last escalation of the situation in north-western Syria, around the ancient Armenian-populated town of Kesab. In the last days Kesab was attacked from the territory of Turkey by Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups. The brutal cross-border attacks, which also targeted the civilian population, resulted in evacuation of local Armenian population to safer areas. The extremist groups occupied the town and desecrated Kesab’s Armenian Apostolic and Armenian Catholic three churches. We call on Turkey to take immediate and effective measures to prevent use of its territory by the terrorist groups to conduct attacks on Kesab," said Ambassador Arman Kirakossian in a statement he made on behalf of Armenia at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting.