Minister says Turkey has exported rifles to Syria ‘for sports’
No weapons intended for war have been exported to Syria in 2013, Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz has said, while acknowledging that weapons “without military uses” for use in sports activities have been exported to Syria, indirectly acknowledging a recent report by daily Hürriyet.
Yılmaz, however, declined to elaborate on the addressee of the imported weaponry.
Permission for exportation of all weapons from Turkey are issued by the Defense Ministry, Yılmaz said on the morning of Dec. 17, while delivering a speech at Parliament’s General Assembly during ongoing budget debates for the fiscal year 2014. According to a report recently published by the state-run Anadolu Agency, Yılmaz initially denied that his ministry had given permission for the exportation of any weapons to Syria.
“No war weapons have been exported to Syria. In 2013, no gun has gone from Turkey to Syria,” Yılmaz was quoted as saying in the report.
17.12.2013
MEDIA
