The Syrian Kurdish militia, YPG, is not proscribed as a terrorist group by the West, who has supported them against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
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Turkey regards the Syrian Democratic Union Party, and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units as terrorists due to their affiliation to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish rebel group.
He said that any Turkish ground action in Syria will be confronted by a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
28 people were killed and 61 others were injured, according to Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu immediately scrapped his trip to Brussels after the blast.
Turkey has arrested at least 9 suspects in connection with Wednesday’s attack.
Russian Federation insists that its campaign is aimed at rooting out terror groups, but the United States and its allies say the strikes have also hit moderate Syria groups that oppose Assad’s regime.
Tensions have steadily increased between Turkey and the PKK since a two-and-a-half year long ceasefire ended last July.
Issuing a written statement immediately after the attack, the TAF said that the explosion targeted military service buses as they were waiting at traffic lights.
“Our determination to respond in kind to attacks taking place inside and outside our borders is getting stronger with such acts”, Erdogan said in a statement.
Turkey both considers both the PKK and YPG to be terror groups, in contrast to the United States which only classifies the PKK as a terror organisation and works closely with the YPG as an effective force fighting jihadists in Syria.
Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Ankara, said the Turkish government will likely launch more air strikes and attacks against the PKK and YPG in Syria and Iraq. “It must be known that Turkey will not refrain from using its right to self-defence at all times”. It is no coincidence that shortly after the terrorist attacks the country’s intelligence agencies declared that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is responsible for what happened. About 2 million Syrian refugees are in Turkey.
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The key players in the Syrian civil war have widely varying objectives.
