The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said that peace talks won’t resume in Geneva on February 25 as he had previously hoped, as Turkey intensified cross border shelling Friday on areas dominated by Syria’s main predominantly Kurdish militia.
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An explosion hit military vehicles at an intersection in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday evening, officials said, in what the military called a terror attack.
Kurdish rebels, the Islamic State group and a leftist extremist group have carried out attacks in the country recently.
The Turkish General Staff said that a “terror attack” hit vehicles carrying its personnel at 6.31 p.m. local time [1631 GMT] while they were waiting at traffic lights on Inonu Boulevard.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said the Ankara auto bomb attack was carried out jointly by a YPG member from Syria and PKK members based in Turkey.
According to the Firat news agency, Bayik said:”We don’t know who did this”.
“Our determination to retaliate to attacks that aim against our unity, togetherness and future grows stronger with every action”, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday.
Turkey’s president says that despite denials, evidence obtained by Turkish authorities points to Syrian Kurdish militias as being behind the vehicle bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people. “Turkey will not hesitate to use its right to self-defense anytime, anywhere, and in all situations”.
Turkey labels both groups as terrorist organizations and is pressuring allies to stop backing the Syrian Kurdish militia group.
He also denied claims the YPG was firing into Turkey.
Turkey has also been helping efforts led by the U.S.to combat the Islamic State group in neighboring Syria, and has faced several deadly bombings in the past year that were blamed on IS. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of refugees leave every night from Turkey to cross the sea to Greece in smugglers’ boats. “We stand with our Turkish allies in the face of this horrific act, which only strengthens our resolve to deepen our ongoing cooperation in the fight against terrorism”, he said.
Washington also condemned the attack, according to a statement by Mark Toner, deputy spokesman of the U.S. State Department. The blast was the second deadly bombing in Ankara in four months.
“Let’s not forget that whenever something like that happens inside Turkey, the first place that they are going to point the finger is going to be the PKK [Kurdish Workers’ Party]”, Daniel Wagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions told RT, adding that IS is “the likelier root of the cause”.
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Turkish media reports say a Syrian national was behind the attack in Ankara that killed at least 28 people and wounded dozens of others.
