PM insists plane carrying munition

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

PM insists that equipment seized in the plane is counted as ammunition.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has insisted that the materials seized in the Syrian passenger plane forced to land in Ankara on Oct. 10 were ammunition.

“All equipment that can be used in war is counted as ammunition. If a missile is ammunition, then the radar and communication devices to direct a missile is ammunition,” Erdoğan said at an expanded meeting of his provincial Justice and Development Party (AKP) chairs.

The Turkish premier was responding to main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who asked Erdoğan on Oct. 16 to give details of the “ammunition” confiscated from the Syrian passenger plane. “I wonder what the ammunition includes. Were there bombs, guns or grenades in that plane?” Kılıçdaroğlu said at his own party’s parliamentary group meeting.

Erdoğan, for his part, once again stressed that a Russian arms exporting agency was sending the confiscated items to the Syrian Defense Ministry. “This [Russian arms manufacturer] KBP [Instrument Design Bureau] does not produce apples or pears. This institution produces war equipments and ammunition,” Erdoğan said.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, meanwhile, said the materials confiscated from the Syrian plane were “materials that can be used for military purposes,” in response to a question about a report in daily Hürriyet.

Ministry does not confirm 400,000

The article had stated that according to information given by the Foreign Ministry and government military officials, the cargo confiscated from the Syrian plane included materials used for making missile and missile platforms.

Turkey is currently sheltering more than 100,000 Syrian refugees in several camps along the border. As of yesterday, Turkish Foreign Ministry has not confirmed that it intends to accommodate some 400,000 Syrian refugees as of June 2013.