Syria denies its forces used chemical weapons - state media

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's government denied on Wednesday that its forces had used chemical weapons in the country's civil war, days after an international inquiry found it responsible for a third toxic gas attack during the conflict. The foreign ministry "denies ... the accusations circulated by some Western circles and their institutions about the use of chemical materials ... during military operations", state news agency SANA reported. It said there was no "tangible evidence" for the international inquiry's findings. The fourth report inquiry by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the global chemical weapons watchdog, blamed Syrian government forces for a toxic gas attack in Qmenas in Idlib governorate on March 16, 2015, according to a text of the report seen by Reuters last week. (Reporting by John Davison in Beirut and Ali Abdelatti in Cairo; editing by Mark Heinrich)