The Turkish government quickly attributed the attack to ISIS, adding that a Syrian man who recently crossed the border to Turkey was behind the deadly blast.
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She said seven wounded Germans were being treated in hospital in Istanbul, five of them in intensive care.
Turkey has arrested over 3,300 people in operations against IS since previous year, including 220 people the week prior to the attack, said Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala. “And neither is he on the target individuals list sent to us by other countries”, Ala told a joint news conference with his German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere.
“In the current stage of the investigation, there is no indication that the attack was targeted against Germans”.
“If the terrorists aimed to destroy or endanger the cooperation between partners, then they achieved the opposite”, de Maiziere said on Wednesday.
The bomber was identified within hours of the attack and it appears that Turkish authorities compared fingerprints from his corpse with the fingerprints he gave at the immigration office.
Tourists listen to a guide at the site of Tuesday’s explosion in the historic Sultanahmet district in Istanbul, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016.
“This person was not someone who was being monitored”, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
The disclosure raises questions for the Turkish security services and comes as Turkey arrested 68 people in a widespread round-up of suspected Isil members.
Russia’s Consulate General in the Mediterranean city of Antalya said three Russians had been detained over suspected connection to IS, said Russian state news agency RIA.
There were still visitors to Sultanahmet Square on Wednesday, as many came to pay tribute to the victims, laying flowers and German football scarves.
The attack left 10 people, including several German tourists dead and 15 others injured.
In October, two suicide bombs at a peace rally killed more than 100 people in Turkey’s capital Ankara.
However, the German foreign ministry has advised its nationals to keep away from large groups in public places and tourist attractions in Istanbul. Adnan Alhussen, a Syrian opposition activist, said Mr. Fadli had been part of a local rebel group near Aleppo that joined Islamic State in 2014 when the extremist group took over his town.
Turkey suffered two major bombing attacks in 2015, both blamed on the Islamic State group.
The fact that the bomber had registered as a Syrian refugee suggests central planning by Islamic State leaders, either to cover their tracks or provoke a backlash in Europe against legitimate Syrian asylum-seekers, said Firas Abi-Ali, an analyst with the security consultancy IHS Country Risk.
Turkey has rounded up hundreds of suspected Islamic State members since launching what it called a “synchronised war on terror” last July, raids which continued on Wednesday.
No-one has yet claimed for responsibility for the attack which also claimed the lives of nine Germans but Turkish officials believe it to be the work of Islamic State terrorists.
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“We will continue our fight against terrorism with the same resolve and will never take a step back”, Turkey’s Prime Minister added.
