A substance seized by Turkish police initially believed to be uranium has turned out not to be radioactive material following tests, a Turkish nuclear specialist said Tuesday.
"The substance we analyzed was not uranium and was not radioactive," Guler Koksal of the Nuclear Research Center in Istanbul was quoted as saying Monday by the Anatolia news agency.
Police confiscated the material contained in a sealed lead tube and detained two men for trafficking in the southwestern town of Sanliurfa near the Syrian border on Saturday.
Koksal said the substance contained iron, zinc, zirconia, and manganese. It "posed absolutely no danger," he made clear. Citing police sources, Anatolia initially reported 15 kilos of uranium had been seized, but authorities later scaled the figure back to 100 grams after determining the tube accounted for most of the weight. (Albawaba.com)
