Unknown yellow substance sent to consulates in Turkey

The 6th High Criminal Court in Ankara and the Hungarian embassy in Istanbul have been the latest recipients of an unidentified yellow powder on Monday, leading to the precautionary hospitalisation of dozens of staff.

The Hungarian embassy is the sixth diplomatic mission to be sent the unidentified powder, according to the Istanbul Governor’s Office.

"It has been expressed that no personnel has been to the premises of the Consulate for the last two days," the governate said in a statement.

"According to our assessments, the package was sent on Friday, on the same day as other consulates got similar packages."

Staff were away from the consulate at the weekend and discovered the chemical substance upon returning on Monday.

The discovery follows on from similar packages found at the consulates of Belgium, Canada, Germany, France and the United States, all of which are thought to have been sent on Friday.

No-one has claimed any responsibility for the sending the substance, nor have any harmful effects been detected from it.

The ministry said that initial tests revealed no evidence of anthrax, plague enterobacteria, tularemia or ricin.

"No sign of a biological warfare material was encountered," the ministry said in a statement.

This was later confirmed by the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD) who had been dispatched to the 6th High Criminal court in Ankara after the announcement.

The Cihan news agency has reported that a prosecutor specialising in counter-terrorism cases has launched a probe into the incident and will gather testimony from employees at the post offices from where the substances were sent, as well as examining surveillance cameras.

Though social media was quick to suggest the Islamic State as a potential source - noting that the missions targeted are all members of the international anti-IS coalition taking part in action against the group in Iraq and Syria - Turkish officials have yet to suggest a suspect.

Steve Johnson, a visiting fellow at Cranfield university, told Middle East Eye that, though seemingly harmless, the nature of the incident highlighted a potential threat.

"This still leaves the imaginative and potentially untrained terrorist with the idea he could try and send any kind of disease causing organism," he said.

"He may have tried an organism that just couldn’t survive. Or he may just have died some powder yellow to cause mischief and a resultant economic cost by making everyone monitor more closely their mail, put more protective measures in place etc."

He also pointed out that there had been incidents previously where non-harmful materials had mistakenly presumed to be toxic.

"There have been incidents where the powder was actually accidental or harmless – examples have included sweets that fell apart, tip ex crumbling off the page etc." he told MEE.

"But in these cases response forces - certainly in the West - combine the context, the device/letter, intelligence about possible attacks to try to determine a likelihood so they don’t end up spiralling in to carrying out every possible lab test to prove its safe."