INTERNATIONAL delegations were urged to visit the site of alleged chemical attacks by Turkish forces in Iraqi Kurdistan today, amid growing calls for world bodies to take firm action.

Guerilla fighters who survived what they believe were poisonous gases released in tunnels used by the Kurdish resistance said that traces of the substances deployed still remain.

Spokesman Mizgin Dalaho said that Turkish forces had not fired a single bullet as part of its military operations against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) “war tunnels.”

He described Ankara’s actions as “immoral,” saying they had come under fire with “explosives, chemical gases and pepper sprays.”

“The first gas they used was green in colour and tasted and smelled like burnt sugar,” he said. “This gas had a pleasant odour.” But another gas used in the tunnels smelled like bleach, he said, and had a long-lasting effect. 

One of the guerilla fighters killed in this attack, Baz Gever, “had a yellow liquid with bubbles coming out of his mouth,” Mr Dalaho said, while other attacks left PKK fighters unconscious for as long as four hours, with six killed due to suffocation.

“Chemical gas is not a weapon to be used in battle,” he said, inviting international organisations to visit the site of the attacks and take away evidence to be examined.

The United Nations, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and other global bodies have so far ignored calls for investigations into the attacks.