The vehicle bomb attack in the Turkish capital’s central Kizilay neighborhood during the evening rush hour left 37 people dead and dozens others injured, Anadolu Agency reports. The Dogan news agency said a police officer and three militants were killed in the clashes. A police source said her severed hand had been found 300 meters from the blast site.
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Erdogan added there was no difference between “a terrorist holding a gun or a bomb and those who use their position and pen to serve the aims of the terrorist”.
He said DNA tests to identify the two possible bombers were continuing.
Bill Park, a lecturer on Turkish foreign policy and security at King’s College London, said Ankara’s aggression toward the Kurds in Syria has angered Kurds inside Turkey and inspired attacks.
Until July of last year, the PKK and the government were engaged in a political process of negotiations that was accompanied by a ceasefire lasting two years. The militants have so far largely focused their strikes on security forces in southeastern towns, many of which have been under curfew. “It is the same thing”, President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara last month.
Earlier, the military said Monday’s air strikes which targeted the Qandil mountains, where the PKK’s leadership is based, killed 45 PKK rebels and destroyed two arms depots and two rocket launcher positions.
Addressing a news conference following a Cabinet meeting chaired by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara Monday, Kurtulmus said: “This is now certain that a woman was the suicide bomber”.
A curfew was also declared on Monday in the southeastern town of Sirnak, alongside ones declared in Yuksekova, near the Iranian border and Nusaybin, near the Syrian border. People were spending their weekends shopping and dining when the explosion occurred.
Victims of Sunday’s attack included the father of Umut Bulut, a footballer who played for Turkey and Galatasaray, the Istanbul club said on its website.
“All five attacks are linked to the fallout of the Syrian civil war”, said Soner Cagaptay, a Turkey expert at the Washington Institute in emailed comments. Such is the complexity and sensitivity of alliances in the region.
The attack in Ankara which is both inhumane and hostile to all the people, is another sign of how our country has been drawn into catastrophe. Sunday’s attack was the second suicide bombing in the capital: a February 17 attack for which a PKK offshoot claimed responsibility killed 29 people. The deadliest came in October when a peace rally outside Ankara’s main train station killed 102 people.
Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey already had plans for large-scale operations against Kurdish militants. Local jihadist groups and leftist radicals have also staged attacks.
Erdogan has previously accused the HDP of being an extension of the PKK, calling for legal action against MPs.
If the bombing was the work of a PKK-affiliated group, it could mark a shift in tactics, since the group had previously targeted Turkey’s security forces instead of civilians, said Otso Iho, a senior analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.
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There was little immediate reaction in financial markets, with the lira TRYTOM=D3 only slightly weaker against the dollar.
