Announcing the military measure on February 13, Prime Minister Davutoglu demanded the YPG withdraw from Azaz and the nearby Menagh military air base and warned the group against using either as a base to attack Turkey or Syrian opposition forces.
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Speaking in parliament, Davutoglu said blaming the PKK for a vehicle bomb attack which killed 28 people last week in the capital Ankara was an attempt to exonerate the YPG.
Davutoglu denounced what he said was a campaign of “black propaganda” carried out from overseas against Turkey’s tourism industry, which was being helped by opponents of the ruling party.
The state-run Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed sources from the prosecutor’s office, said DNA tests confirmed that Somer, 26, had detonated the bomb.
But the group which claimed the attack, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), said the bomber was a homegrown Turkish Kurd named Abdulbaki Somer with the nom de guerre Zinar Raperin. Meanwhile in Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby urged Turkey to halt its cross-border artillery fire and called on the YPG and its affiliated forces “not to take advantage of a confused situation by seizing new territory”.
Turkey has been pressing the U.S.to cut off support to the Kurdish Syrian militias, which Turkey regards as terrorists due to their affiliation with the PKK.
The government has dismissed TAK’s responsibility claim.
“Whatever the judicial inquiry concludes over the identity of the bomber, it is clear that the bomber came from Rojava, the area of the PYD”, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters, referring to Kurdish-controlled northern Syria.
Last week, the government had identified the bomber as Syrian national Salih Naccar.
Turkey does not make a distinction between the YPG in Syria and the PKK in Turkey.
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“Somalia became a symbol for Turkey’s perspective on the African continent and our wish to establish brotherhood with other African countries”, Erdogan said. If they continue to have same attitude talking [to] one side to gain time and attacking civilians and Syrian people on the other side, this initiative can not be successful. All were detained on charges of making propaganda for a terror organisation.
