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Syria's vice foreign minister denied Monday that his government ever used chemical weapons or chlorine during the country's brutal civil war and warned that terror groups are using such weapons, The Associated Press reported.

Faysal Mekdad was speaking at a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as the group comes close to fully eliminating Damascus' deadly stockpile of nerve agents and poison gas - helping international efforts to prevent terrorists using such weapons.

Mekdad said that terror groups "have used chlorine gas in several of the regions of Syria and Iraq."

It's not the first time such claims have been made. In October, Iraqi officials said militants from ISIS used chlorine gas during fighting with security forces and Shiite militiamen north of Baghdad. The statements in Iraq came two days after Kurdish officials and doctors said they believed ISIS militants had released some kind of toxic gas in an eastern district of Kobani.