Davutoglu has also tried to reassure tourism companies around the world that Turkey and its resort locations remain safe for foreign visitors, although his cause wasn’t helped by the recent Ankara terrorist auto bomb tragedy, where 28 people were killed one week ago. On Thursday February 18th, 2016, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), a PKK splinter group, claimed to have executed the bombing.
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Turkey’s tourism industry also suffered a huge blow with the crisis between Ankara and Moscow, which began when Turkish jets shot down a Russian war plane on the Syrian border on November 24.
Anadolu Agency said Monday the 14 are suspected of aiding a terror organization, forging official documents and fraud.
Among those arrested were the bomber’s brother, his father and the imam of the mosque, the report said.
“The claim of responsibility by TAK, a PKK offshoot, aims to divert attention from the YPG”.
“Turkey is involved in Syria…There, there is a risk of war”, Hollande told France Inter radio in an interview cited by AFP.
The industry has been shaken by security concerns as Turkey wages a two-pronged offensive against Islamic State jihadists and Kurdish militants.
The Turkish armed forces shelled YPG positions in northern Syria in the days after the Ankara bombing and launched air strikes on PKK camps in northern Iraq, as the government vowed that those responsible would pay the price.
The government says, however, it has evidence that a US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia group carried out the attack in collaboration with Turkey’s own Kurdish rebels.
Over the weekend, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu demanded that the United States pledge “unconditional” military support for Turkey in the fight against the Kurdish YPG, a Syrian faction which has been the primary U.S. ally in fighting ISIS. It said Abdulbaki Somer – an ethnic Kurd from the eastern Turkish province of Van – had carried out the attack in retaliation for Turkish military operations against militants in southeast Turkey.
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“Their owners and puppeteers are known to us”.
