Turkey, Saudis give chemical weapons to militants: Syria

Speaking before the First Committee on Disarmament and International Security at the UN General Assembly on Friday, al-Jaafari further censured the two regional countries for supplying weapons and funds to the foreign-backed militants in his country, alleging that Turkey alone has been backing 106 militant groups operating within Syria.
 
    Underlining the extent of Turkey’s involvement in supporting the anti-Damascus militancy in his country, the Syrian envoy also stated that instead of lending “a helping hand to Syria to overcome the crisis...Turkish government...became one of the main support bases for these terrorist organizations,” Syria's official news agency, SANA, reported 
 
According to the report, al-Jaafari further suggested that the UN Arms Trade Treaty must be implemented to account for the illicit trafficking of small and light weaponry, pointing to the need to “utterly [prohibit] supplying weapons to non-state elements and armed terrorist organizations.”
 
Al-Jaafari’s remarks came following recent statements by US Vice President Joe Biden, who also criticized closely allied states of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for their active support for radical elements inside Syria.
 
Biden said in a forum at Harvard University on October 2 that the three major US allies in the region were “so determined to take down Assad” that “they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against [Syrian President Bashar] Assad – except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements…coming from other parts of the world.”
 
Under pressure, Biden quickly apologized to all three states for his comments.