France has closed its diplomatic missions until further notice in Turkey’s two main cities and in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir due to security concerns.
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The embassy in Ankara and the consulate-general in Istanbul will be closed until further notice, France says.
French consul to Istanbul Muriel Domenach wrote on Twitter the events in all three cities had been cancelled “for security reasons”, and France was in touch with the Turkish authorities. No further details were given.
The consulate general in Istanbul had earlier said that information pointed to a “serious threat” against plans to celebrate the July 14 National Day. “As a precaution, we have decided, in conjunction with the Turkish authorities, to cancel the celebrations”, a statement from the mission in Istanbul said.
Thirty-seven suspects have been arrested over suspicion of involvement in the attacks and belonging to IS.
The June 28 attack on Ataturk International Airport raised new alarm over the security of foreigners in Turkey after a spate of attacks this year blamed on jihadists and Kurdish militants.
Since the first Russian-Chechen war in the mid-1990s, Istanbul has been home to thousands of Chechen refugees, with reports suggesting that Chechens have used the Turkish metropolis as a base to recruit fighters and to recuperate from injuries after being wounded in Syria.
Turkey has been the target of increasing terrorist attacks by so-called Islamic State (IS) and hundreds have died in bombings in Ankara and Istanbul since the beginning of the year.
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According to information Hürriyet gathered from security and intelligence sources, Turkey has not made a specific notification to the French Embassy, but necessary warnings have been dispatched to nearly all embassies and diplomatic missions citing fresh intelligence of a potential attack on foreign missions in Turkey.
