(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - "The Syrian side has admitted what it did and apologized," Atalay told reporters on Thursday.
He added that Ankara's acts toward Syria were in coordination with international institutions and that Turkey had exercised its right to shell targets on the Syrian soil in retaliation.
Atalay also defended the Turkish parliament's approval of a motion which authorizes military operations inside Syria, saying it was not a war mandate but a tool in Ankara's hands to protect its interests in the future.
The motion, however, received a chilly welcome from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which branded the motion as "a war initiation," as well as from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).
The Turkish cabinet drafted the bill in an emergency meeting late Wednesday, hours after mortars fired from inside Syria landed in Turkey's southeastern border town of Akcakale, killing five civilians.
An infuriated Ankara immediately retaliated by pounding unspecified Syrian targets, killing several Syrian soldiers. It also asked the UN Security Council take action against Damascus over the Wednesday shelling.
Tensions have been running high between Syria and Turkey, with Damascus blaming Turkey -- along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar -- for backing a deadly insurgency that has claimed the lives of many Syrians, including security and army personnel.
In July, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview with the Turkish Cumhuriyet daily that Ankara “has supplied all logistic support to the terrorists who have killed our people.”
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