Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday the attack was clear evidence that the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish group supported by the United States in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Syria, was a “terrorist” organisation.
Advertisement
Turkish military attacked PKK positions late Wednesday in northern Iraq shortly after the vehicle bombing that targeted military personnel shuttles in downtown Ankara.
Turkey has for five consecutive days shelled targets of the PYD inside Syria, saying the military was responding to incoming fire.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Turkey in renewed fighting following the collapse of the peace process between the government and the Kurds in July.
“Our determination to retaliate to attacks that aim against our unity and future grows stronger with every action”, Erdogan said.
Pentagon chief Ash Carter also reaffirmed the US relationship with Turkey. “The attack was carried out by YPG member Salih Necar, who came in from Syria”.
Fourteen suspects have been detained over Wednesday’s vehicle bombing in Ankara that killed at least 28 people and wounded 61 others, Interior Minister Efkan Ala said Thursday. Other officials said they believed the Islamic State (ISIS) could have been behind the deadly attack.
The YPG is the armed wing of the PYD, another Kurdish separatist group based in Syria, and Turkey sees it as an affiliate of the PKK. Turkey lately has also directed its ire at Russian Federation after Moscow began supporting the Syrian government with airstrikes.
Davutoglu said Syria’s government, which he accused of backing Syrian Kurdish militias, is also to blame.
The explosion occurred during rush hour in an area some 300 meters (328 yards) away from military headquarters.
The Turkish General Staff said that 60 to 70 people, including some of the PKK’s top figures, were targeted Wednesday night in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region close to Turkish border, according to Anadolu.
Turkey considers the YPG an off-shoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting Turkish security forces in the country’s Kurdish areas.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) assisted with the attack, he said.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation termed the bombing a “heinous act that runs against all human values”.
Turkey is getting dragged ever deeper into the war in neighbouring Syria and is trying to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast.
It followed an explosion in Istanbul’s main tourist district that killed 10 people in January and twin blasts in Ankara in October that killed 102 in the deadliest terrorist assault in the nation’s history.
Advertisement
Wednesday’s bomb attack on a military convoy in Ankara was the fifth on Turkish soil in less than a year, bringing an unprecedented level of conflict to a country that, once upon a time, stood out for its relative tranquillity compared to its politically tumultuous neighbours.
