Syria’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed as “null and void” U.S. accusations that President Bashar Assad’s government is producing and using “new kinds of weapons” to deliver deadly chemicals despite committing to abolish its program in 2013.

The ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Syria confirms the American statements are “nothing more than lies” based on the accounts of what the Trump administration called its partners on ground.

Syria also says that reports by Western-backed media outlets about Damascus using chemical weapons “is a new version of U.S. and Western desperate intentions to create” an excuses to attack Syria.

President Donald Trump has not ruled out additional military action to deter attacks or punish Assad, administration officials said earlier this week, although they did not suggest any action was imminent.

Turkey says eight of its soldiers were killed near the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin in what has been the deadliest day so far since Ankara’s operation there started.

In a statement late on Saturday, the Turkish military said five soldiers were killed after their tank in Syria came under attack near Afrin. It says the soldiers could not be saved despite all attempts.

Earlier in the day, three Turkish soldiers were reported killed in the offensive. One was killed in the area of the tank attack, another in northern Syria and the third on the Turkish side of the border in what Ankara said was an attack by Syrian Kurdish militiamen.

The total death toll for Turkish troops since the operation started on Jan. 20 now stands at 13.

The statement says a Syrian Kurdish militia and the Islamic State group carried out the attack, without providing details.

Turkey launched the incursion into Afrin to rout the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia, which it considers to be a terrorist organization and an extension of Kurdish insurgents fighting within Turkey.