A splinter group from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has claimed it carried out a bomb attack on a military convoy in the Turkish capital Ankara that killed at least 28 people.
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“It has with certainty been revealed that this attack was carried out by members of the terrorist organisation in Turkey in cooperation with a YPG member who infiltrated from Syria”, said Dr Davutoglu, who identified the bomber as Syrian national Salih Necar.
One day after a auto bomb targeting military vehicles killed at least 28 people in Ankara, Turkey’s leaders say the attacker was a Syrian man with links to Kurdish militants in both Turkey and Syria.
On Thursday, the ambassadors of the five permanent U.N. Security Council member states were invited separately to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry and were being briefed on the Ankara attack, a ministry official said. About 2 million Syrian refugees are in Turkey. It said the attack was in retaliation for the military’s stepped-up operations against the PKK.
Davutoglu added that the YPG was a “pawn” of Damascus and stated that the Syrian government was “directly responsible” for the attack, insisting that Turkey reserved the right to take every measure against the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The group is seeking the creation of an independent Kurdish state that encompasses parts of southeast Turkey.
“This incident will help our friends – who have so far failed to be convinced – better understand how strong the links are between the YPG and PYD in Syria and the PKK in Turkey”, he said. The PKK, which have been fighting for regional independence, are recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey and western allies and have been blamed for numerous attacks.
The United States has rejected Turkey’s claims that U.S. weapons had ended up in the hands of Daesh Takfiri terrorists, the Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) based in Syria.
Tareq Abu Zeid, a rebel spokesman fighting with the SDF in northern Aleppo said the allied forces had “all the possible options to respond to the Turkish shelling of their positions in Syria”, in an interview with Syria Direct this past Saturday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which killed military personnel and civilians, although suspicion had immediately fallen on the PKK or the Islamic State group.
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The army has continued to shell YPG targets across the border near the rebel-held town of Azaz.
