Australia warns against travel to Ankara, Istanbul

Seven policemen killed in Turkey

CANBERRA, Australia, March 31, (Agencies): The Australian government on Thursday warned its citizens against traveling to the Turkish cities of Ankara and Istanbul because of the terrorist threat.

The heightened travel warnings followed the deaths of more than 80 people in four separate suicide bombings in the two cities this year, Foreign Minister Jul- ie Bishop said.

Australians are advised to “reconsider your need to travel” to the cities -- the second-highest danger warning on a fourtier scale.

“Terrorist groups continue to threaten further attacks, including targeting tourists and westerners,” Bishop said in a statement.

Provinces of Batman, Bingol, Bitlis, Gaziantep, Hakkari, Hatay, Kilis, Mardin, Sanliurfa, Siirt, Sirnak, Tunceli and Van had previously carried the same travel warning.

Turkey overall carries Australia’s second-lowest travel warning, although Australians are advised not to go within 10 kilometers (six miles) of the Syrian border.

The warning comes as thousands of Australians prepare to travel to Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula to commemorate the anniversary of the landing of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps troops in an ill-fated invasion on April 25, 1915, during World War I.

Bishop said the Australian government was not aware of any specific threat to

ANZAC Day services planned on the peninsula.

Australians traveling to services should minimize any transit time spent in Istanbul and Ankara, she said.

Elsewhere, a car bomb killed seven police officers and wounded around two dozen people in Turkey’s Diyarbakir on Thursday, security sources and officials said, a day before the prime minister is due to visit the biggest city in the largely Kurdish southeast.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah on Thursday sent a cable of condolence to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the victims of today’s bombing that left scores of people dead or injured.

In his cable, His Highness the Amir strongly condemned the horrible terrorist act that violates all religious and human values, and that targeted innocent people and the country’s security and stability.

His Highness the Amir also reiterated Kuwait’s firm position rejecting all forms and manifestations of terrorism, praying to Allah the Almighty to bless the victims’ souls with mercy and those injured a swift recovery.

His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber AlMubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah sent the Turkish president similar cables.

A parked car laden with explosives was detonated by remote control as a minibus carrying the police officers turned a corner on a busy street, the sources said, adding that civilians were also among the wounded.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who is on a visit to Washington for a nuclear security summit, denounced the attack, saying it showed the “ugly face” of militants “as they are cornered”.

“This shows terrorism’s ugly face again. The determination of our security forces will, God willing, put an end” to it, Erdogan said in a speech to the Brookings Institute.

He said 27 people had also been wounded in the attack.

The southeast has been scorched by violence since a ceasefire between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the government collapsed last July. The government has said it has killed thousands of militants since then, while more than 350 members of the security forces have been killed in the fighting.

Round-the-clock curfews have been instituted in parts of the southeast, where the economy also been devastated by the fighting. One of the hardest hit areas has been Diyarbakir’s historic Sur district, which is encircled by UNESCOlisted, Roman-era walls.

Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz, in the area ahead of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit, said the government wanted to rebuild the region.

“We are here to rebuild Diyarbakir and make it beautiful, and they want to destroy it,” he said in comments broadcast live. “We will not retreat in fear.”

The government has announced an ambitious restoration plan for the southeast.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bomb attack. A PKK offshoot has claimed two car bomb attacks this year in the capital Ankara.

The first, on February 17, targeted a military bus and killed 29 people, mostly soldiers. The second, just under a month later, killed 37 in a crowded transport hub.

NATO member Turkey faces multiple security threats.

As part of a US-led coalition, it is fighting Islamic State in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

In Istanbul this month a suicide bomber, who the government said was a member of Islamic State, killed three Israeli tourists and an Iranian.

In other news, police in Turkey have detained a Turkish citizen accused by Moscow of killing a Russian pilot when he ejected over Syria after being shot down by one of Ankara’s war planes, reports said Thursday.

Alparslan Celik was detained along with a dozen others while they were eating at a restaurant in the Aegean city of Izmir, the Dogan news agency reported.

Acting on a tip-off, police raided the restaurant, and seized one Kalashnikov rifle, two pistols and ammunition.

Celik has been accused by Russia of killing Russian pilot Oleg Peshkov in cold blood as he parachuted to the ground after his plane was shot down by Turkish air forces on the Syrian border on Nov 24.

The shooting down of the Russian Su-24 and Peshkov’s killing caused an unprecedented crisis in relations between Ankara and Moscow.

It was not immediately clear if his arrest was linked to the incident with the Russian pilot of if it was on separate charges of possessing arms.

Fourteen people, including Celik, are being interrogated by the police, Dogan said.

Celik, the son of a prominent local politician from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), has since 2014 been fighting alongside Turkmen forces in Syria.

The Turkmen, one of majority Arab Syria’s ethnic minorities, speak a language very similar to modern Turkish and are staunch allies of Ankara in fighting forces of Russia’s ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Celik in January made a public appearance at a funeral for a Turkish nationalist local politician who was killed fighting with a Turkmen militia in Syria, outraging Moscow even further.

Russia’s ambassador to Ankara Andrei Karlov had in December directly accused Celik of shooting Peshkov. Celik has never directly confirmed or denied the circumstances of the pilot’s death.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in December also urged Turkey to arrest Celik and his accomplices and “bring them to justice for the murder of the Russian pilot.”