The common-law wife of one of the perpetrators of last week's terrorist rampage in France crossed into Syria from Turkey on January 8th, Turkey's foreign minister said.
Mevlut Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu news agency that Hayat Boumedienne arrived in Turkey from Madrid on January 2nd, ahead of the attacks, and stayed at a hotel in Istanbul.
He said Turkish authorities established that she had crossed into Syria on Thursday, the day her husband shot a policewoman dead on the outskirts of Paris and a day after the massacre at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The Syrian government accused Turkey of allowing “terrorists” to freely cross the border.
Turkey is a strong backer of Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow president Bashar Assad, whose government views all of its armed opponents as “terrorists”.
The Syrian foreign ministry said that Turkey had aided terrorists who “shed the blood of Syrians and innocent people worldwide” and called on the international community “to stop Turkey’s destructive policy”.
Meanwhile, French security forces are mobilising in their search for what the prime minister called a “probable” accomplice to three days of bloodshed and terror around the capital.
Manuel Valls said the search is urgent because "the threat is still present" after the attacks that left 17 people dead — journalists at Charlie Hebdo, hostages at a kosher supermarket and three police officers. All three attackers died in nearly simultaneous raids by security forces on Friday.
Video emerged yesterday of one of the assailants explaining how the attacks would unfold and police want to find the person who filmed and posted the video.
Mr Valls told BFM television that France is at war against “terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam”.