Ankara has been on high on alert since October, when 103 people were killed in a suicide attack on a crowd of peace activists, the bloodiest attack in the country’s modern history.
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A military convoy has been hit by a bomb in southeast Turkey, killing at least six troops and seriously injuring one more person – escalating tensions in an already febrile atmosphere following a deadly bomb blast in Ankara on Wednesday.
In a live television speech, Davutoglu said the bombing showed that the Syrian Kurdish YPG is a terrorist organization and that Turkey expects cooperation from its allies against the group. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Washington to choose between Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish group as its partner.
He was born in 1992 in the mostly Kurdish Syrian town of Amouda, near the Turkish border, Davutoglu said. Northern Iraq is home to the majority of that country’s Kurdish population.
The co-leader of the PKK umbrella group, Cemil Bayik, was quoted by the Firat news agency as saying he did not know who was responsible for the Ankara bombing. “Those who conducted the attack will probably announce why soon”.
In Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory has reported ongoing fierce clashes between Arab opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish fighters in Kurdish-held neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud.
Police spokesman Lars Bystrom says no arrests have been made, adding police couldn’t immediately say whether it was linked to a bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people. “They don’t consider Turkey as an enemy”, he said.
Hundreds of Syrian rebels with weapons and vehicles have re-entered Syria from Turkey over the last week to reinforce insurgents fending off the Kurdish-led assault on Azaz, rebel sources said on Thursday.
Ankara has said the bombardment was a response to shelling from YPG positions.
A terror attack was carried out in Ankara Feb. 17 near the buildings of the Turkish parliament, the general staff and a military dorm in the city.
Authorities suspect a bomb-laden vehicle caused the explosion, Kiliclar said, according to Anadolu.
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.
Turkey invited ambassadors from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany, the Netherlands and an European Union delegation to the Foreign Ministry to inform them about the bombing, according to a Turkish official.
The leader of the main Syrian Kurdish group, Salih Muslim, denied that his group was behind the Ankara attack in an interview with The Associated Press and warned Turkey against taking ground action in Syria.
Turkey is alarmed that the YPG now controls much of the Syrian border with Turkey and is essentially creating a state within a state. The long-simmering dispute between Washington and Ankara over the Kurdish issue burst into public view last month when Brett McGurk, the State Department’s pointman on anti-ISIS efforts, met with YPG members in the Syrian town of Kobani.
Erdogan said the bombing would serve to make Turkey’s friends “better understand how strong are the links between PYD and YPG in Syria’s north with the PKK in Turkey”.
Turkey labels both groups as terrorist organizations and is pressuring allies to stop backing the Syrian Kurdish militia group.
“The PYD has deployed just two kilometers from Azaz since Tuesday and today they have started to carry out their attack to seize the city”, Karsli said.
Turkey is concerned that the YPG is trying to create an autonomous region in northern Syria on its southern border.
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“Turkey will not hesitate to use its right to self-defense anytime, anywhere, and in all situations”.
