Syria denies involvement in Turkish border town blasts

Damascus: The Bashar al-Assad-led Syrian government has denied Turkey’s accusations of Damascus being behind Saturday’s deadly explosions in a Turkish border town. The car bombings in the town of Reyhanli near the Turkish-Syrian border killed 45 people and injured over 100, Xinhua reported. [caption id=“attachment_775881” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  People view the scene at one of the Saturday explosion sites that killed 46 and injured about 50 others, in Reyhanli, near Turkey’s border with Syria. AP[/caption] During a symposium here Sunday, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said: “Syria didn’t and will never carry out such acts because our values don’t allow us to do so. “This act is terrorist and is condemned in all ethical, legitimate and humanitarian criteria.” But Al-Zoubi accused the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of having “direct responsibility” for what had happened in both Syria and Turkey. On Saturday, Turkish deputy prime minister Besir Atalay reportedly said the investigation into the bombings was about to complete, and some information showed that “Syrian regime’s intelligence agency, al-Mukhabarat, is behind the blasts”. The Syrian minister also pointed out that Erdogan made the accusations ahead of his meeting with the US President Barack Obama, charging Erdogan of wanting to foil the Russian-US efforts to solve the Syrian crisis peacefully. IANS