US and Kurds to blame for bomb attack, says Turkey
Minister dismisses warm words from Washington, which funds militia group Ankara blames for blast
TURKISH authorities have blamed Sunday’s deadly bombing in Istanbul on Kurdish militants in northern Syria and accused the United States of complicity in the attack.
Six people were killed and dozens more were injured when a blast tore through a crowded street in an attack that was allegedly carried out by a woman trained by Kurdish militants.
“We have been on the same track since preliminary evaluation: our assessment is that the order came from Kobane,” Suleyman Soylu, the interior minister, told reporters yesterday, referring to a northern Syrian town on the border with Turkey which became a hub for Kurdish fighters in the Syrian civil war.
The interior minister dismissed condolences from the United States as hypocritical, saying they sounded “as if a murderer was one of the first to arrive at the crime scene”.
Washington has for years been supporting the YPG, a Kurdish militia group operating in Syria, in the fight against the Islamic State.
Turkish officials claim there is no difference between the Us-funded YPG and militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (the PKK), which is listed as a terrorist organisation in the US and the EU and has been behind several deadly attacks in Turkey in past decades.
The explosion on Istiklal Avenue, Istanbul’s most popular shopping street, shattered a period of relative calm that followed a series of attacks linked to IS and Kurdish militants in 2015 and 2016.
Istanbul police said yesterday they had used footage from 1,200 CCTV cameras to trace the attacker, who reportedly left a bag containing an explosive device made of a small amount of TNT in the street and took a taxi to a house in a western suburb.
Early yesterday morning, police released footage of special forces storming a house on the outskirts of the city and arresting a woman who was later identified as a Syrian national.
The young woman, with bruises on her face and dressed in a purple hoodie, was pictured in handcuffs at an Istanbul police office.
CCTV footage showed a woman walking on Istiklal in a headscarf and camouflage pants and placing a package behind a flower pot.
Police said in a statement that the
‘American condolences are like a murderer being one of the first to arrive at the crime scene’
woman, identified as Ahlam Albashir, confessed that she had been trained as a “special intelligence officer” by YPG Kurdish militants in Syria and “entered the country illegally”.
At least 46 people have been detained in connection with the attack. The PKK denied involvement and said it would not attack civilians. Mazloum Abdi, a Syrian Democratic Forces commander, also denied involvement.
A Turkish official said the possibility of IS being responsible for the attack was “not entirely disregarded”.
The attack comes at a crucial time for Turkey as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its president, faces an election next year amid an acute cost of living crisis and rising inflation. The official line blaming the attack on Kurdish militants is likely to further whip up tensions between Turks and Syrian migrants, which might give Mr Erdogan a mandate to carry out another incursion into Syria.
The bombing is a major blow for Ekrem Immamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul who could rival Mr Erdogan at the polls next year.
Mr Immamoglu paid respect to the victims yesterday morning at the site of the attack, covered with red carnations before taking a stroll on Istiklal and attending a victim’s funeral.
Six Turkish citizens, two members each of three families, were killed in the attack. Social worker Yusuf Meydan and his daughter, nine, died in the attack while his wife was inside a shop, according to the Demiroren agency.
The Meydan family was supposed to go back to their hometown Adana on Sunday after attending an engagement ceremony of a relative in Istanbul, the cousin of Mr Meydan said in an interview with Demiroren.
“They went there for an engagement ceremony of a relative... they were supposed to come back last night,” the man said.
Authorities said 24 of the wounded, including two in critical condition, were still in hospital, while another 57 were discharged after treatment.
The local municipality, controlled by Mr Erdogan’s party, removed benches and flower pots from Istiklal yesterday, prompting the mayor to criticise the officials for “finding fault with a flower pot” instead of looking for the real cause of the attack.