DNA samples were taken from family members of two possible Islamic State militants who could be the bomber, the private Turkish Dogan news agency reported.
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The attempt came after an IS suicide bomber killed five people and wounded 36 others in Istanbul on Saturday.
Interior Minister Efkan Ala on Sunday identified the Istanbul bomber as a Mehmet Ozturk, born in 1992 and from the southern province of Gaziantep near the Syrian border.
Israeli flag-draped coffins carrying the body of an Israeli who was killed in Saturday’s suicide bombing in Istanbul upon return to Israel, at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel on March 20. Two of the Israeli tourists held dual citizenship with the United States.
Several of the terrorist attacks have targeted tourist areas frequented by Israeli and American visitors, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to question whether this recent attack specifically targeted Israeli nationals.
The Israelis’ bodies and other Israelis wounded in the blast were being evacuated while a senior Israeli foreign ministry official headed to Istanbul for meetings with Turkish officials.
Turkey’s Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a Kurdish-rooted opposition party, condemned the bombing as well. Turkey has witnessed a series of deadly suicide bombings, some claimed by Kurdish militants and others blamed on IS. Two senior officials said the attack could have been carried out by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for Kurdish autonomy in the southeast, or by an Islamic State militant.
Since October a year ago, there have been four attacks, two in Istanbul, two in Ankara, causing hundreds of deaths. More than 200 people have been killed in five suicide attacks since January in Ankara or Istanbul. The bodies of the three Israelis were flown home Sunday for burial.
“In the wake of an NSCCTB assessment of the situation, it was chose to update the existing travel warning vis-à-vis Turkey from an ongoing potential threat to a basic concrete threat, and to reiterate our recommendation to the public to avoid visiting the country”, the statement went on to say.
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“We will never surrender to the agenda of terror”.
