‘Smell of terror’ of Turkey blast

FATAL BOMBING: KURDISTAN WORKERS’ PARTY BLAMED

Woman sat on bench for 40 minutes – then left bag behind.

Turkey’s interior minister accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) yesterday of a bombing in a busy Istanbul street that killed eight people and wounded scores, saying more than 20 people have been arrested.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan landed in Bali for a G20 summit of the world’s leading economies shortly after his government accused the PKK of being behind Sunday’s blast.

He had called the bombing a “vile attack”, before leaving for the summit and said it had a “smell of terror”.

The explosion tore through Istiklal

Street, a popular shopping destination for locals and tourists. No individual or group has claimed the attack.

“The person who planted the bomb has been arrested,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in the early hours of yesterday. He added that 21 others were also detained. “According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organisation is responsible,” he said.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, as well as its Western allies, has kept up a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the ’80s.

Soylu also accused PKK-affiliated Kurdish militants, who control most of northeastern Syria and who are deemed as “terrorists” by Ankara, of being responsible for the attack.

“We believe that the order for the attack was given from Kobane,” he said, referring to a city near the Turkish border. It was also the site of a 2015 battle between Kurdish militants and Islamic State jihadists, who were driven out after more than four months of fighting.

Regularly targeted by Turkish military operations, the PKK is at the heart of a tussle between Sweden and Turkey, which has been blocking Stockholm’s entry into Nato since May, accusing it of leniency towards the group.

“We believe that it is a terrorist act carried out by an attacker, whom we consider to be a woman, exploding the bomb,” Turkey’s Vice-President Fuat Oktay said.

Justice minister Bekir Bozdag said a woman “had been sitting on one of the benches for more than 40 minutes, and then she got up”, leaving a bag. “One or two minutes later, an explosion occurred,” he said. “There are two possibilities. There’s either a mechanism placed in this bag and it explodes, or someone remotely explodes (it).” –

Picture: EPA-EFE SHRINE. People yesterday lay flowers at the area of a deadly explosion the previous day on Istiklal Street in Istanbul, Turkey. According to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, at least eight people were killed.