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Erdogan rejects PKK, PYD denials over Ankara bomb

First, YPG never looked for increased enmity on Turkey, they are just trying to equal the relations on both sides of the border.

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Accusing Syrian Kurdish forces of responsibility for the Ankara bombing allows the Turkish government “to justify its strikes in Syria, especially amidst global pressure on Turkey to stop its bombardment”, Akram Saleh, a Kurdish journalist now embedded with the YPG in northeastern Al-Hasakah province told Syria Direct on Thursday.

Erdogan said the bombing would serve to make Turkey’s friends “better understand how strong are the links between PYD and YPG in Syria’s north with the PKK in Turkey”.

“I’d like to warn Russian Federation, which is giving air support to the YPG in its advance on Azaz, not to use this terrorist group against the innocent people of Syria and Turkey”, he said, referring to the area Syrian Kurdish troops are approaching.

Firefighters respond to a fire Wednesday in Ankara, Turkey, at the scene where a auto bomb exploded near two vehicles carrying…

Noting that the majority of Afghanistan’s population is younger than 18, Zerrougui said child soldiers are “deprived of the minimum of their basic rights”.

If Ankara has evidence that the YPG – the military wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) – was behind the attack, it has not yet been released.

Davutoglu also had words for Russian Federation, which is conducting airstrikes on behalf of the Assad regime in Syria, and has entered a state of high tension with Turkey.

Turkey’s Anadolu Agency quoted a Syrian rebel commander as saying that the PYD’s “latest large-scale assault was just six kilometers (four miles) from the Turkish border”.

“We strongly condemn this cowardly attack which appears to have targeted buses carrying Turkish military personnel”.

An IS suicide bomber also killed 11 German tourists on 16 January, when he blew himself up in the tourist heart of Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul.

Turkish military has been shelling PYD and PKK positions in northern Syria for three consecutive days in retaliation to artillery fire from PYD forces based around Azaz town located in Aleppo’s northern countryside Saturday night.

Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara that the bombing was carried out by a Syrian national named Salih Necar, adding that nine people had been detained in connection with the attack.

Ankara was already on alert after 103 people were killed on October 10 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of peace activists, the bloodiest attack in the country’s modern history.

The situation is complicated by Kurdish militia groups in Iraq and Syria who have been fighting Islamic State, or ISIL, militants alongside the United States and its allies.

Erdogan said that 20 of those killed were military personnel.

The military said on Thursday that Turkish jets attacked PKK positions in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region, hitting a group of 60 to 70 rebels which it said included a number of senior PKK leaders. But she said the Afghan local police – government-allied groups that often operate as independent militias and are widely seen as unprofessional and corrupt – are major perpetrators.

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Turkey is alarmed that the YPG now controls much of the Syrian border with Turkey and is essentially creating a state within a state.

Pic EPA