MOSCOW, January 12 (Sputnik) — Accusing Turkey of being partially responsible for the recent Paris terrorist attacks is unfair, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday.
Earlier, the Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Turkey of allowing the partner of one of the gunmen in last week's terrorist attacks in Paris to cross into Syria. In turn, Davutoglu said Turkey "will not accept" being assigned blame it does not deserve, Deutsche Welle reports.
Davutoglu also added that 35 million tourists visit Turkey each year. He noted that the Turkish authorities did not have enough resources to check every tourist on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities. At the same time, he stated that the country's government denied access to 7,000 persons, of which 1,500-2,000 were German and French citizens, subsequently deported to their home countries.
On Thursday, Amedy Coulibaly is believed to have killed a female police officer in a Parisian suburb, while the next day he took hostages in a kosher food shop, killing four of them. He was later shot dead in a police assault. Boumeddiene, his common-law wife, is also wanted for allegedly taking part in Thursday's attack.
Amedy Coulibaly is reported to have had links with the two gunmen who killed 12 people in an assault on the office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine, known for its anti-religious cartoons.