Turkey, fearing the YPG’s success could motivate Kurdish separatists across the border in Turkey, has been increasingly forceful in demanding the Kurds vacate the area, punctuating the demand with artillery fire, and allowing battered rebel forces to regroup on Turkish soil before re-entering Syria to fight the Kurds. ISIL has also recently carried out bombing attacks in Turkey including an attack in Ankara in October that killed 102 people.
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At least 14 people have been arrested in the Ankara attack, Erdogan said, adding that the number of detained suspects is likely to increase.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the evidence pointed to the Syrian Kurdish group.
“I hope the terrorist attack carried out by PYD [Democratic Union Party] in Ankara will be an eye opener for those who claim that PYD in not a terrorist organization”, the Turkish ambassador to Washington, Serdar Kilic, wrote on Twitter. It has been pressing its ally, the United States, to recognize the Syrian Kurdish forces as terrorists.
A coalition of which the YPG is a part, however, denounced the Ankara bombing.
The Wednesday night bombing targeted military vehicles in the Turkish capital.
The route via Turkey has become the only supply line for Azaz after the Syrian army closed what had been the opposition’s main route for years, not to mention their advancement to within 25 miles of the border for the first time in over two years.
The statement said YPG is not engaged in any military activity against neighboring states or other forces.
Earlier this month, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defense ministers chose to intensify intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at the Turkish-Syrian border. He also blamed the government of President Bashar Assad for allegedly supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia. “The attack was carried out by YPG member Salih Necar, who came in from Syria”.
The PKK has been battling it out with Turkish security forces in several Kurdish towns in southeastern Turkey in a unsafe escalation of fighting following the breakdown of peace talks last summer. He further elaborated that the Kurdish militants inside Turkey offered support in the form of logistics.
In an apparent appeal to the United States, Mr Davutoglu called on allies to withdraw their support for Kurdish militias fighting in Syria.
Ahmet Davutoglu also told reporters Thursday that Syria’s government, which he accused of backing Syrian Kurdish militias, is also to blame.
The Turkish government has criticised its western allies, foremost the U.S., over their refusal to designate the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD) and its armed wing, the YPG, as a terrorist organisation.
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In a separate development, at least six security personnel were killed and one soldier was seriously wounded in another bomb explosion in southeast Turkey, in the primarily Kurdish Diyarbakir province.
