Turkey accuses a Syrian Kurd of bombing Ankara and vows to retaliate
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, right, walks with Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces Hulusi Akar during a condolence visit at the General Staff headquarters in Ankara on Feb. 18, the day after the car bombing.
ISTANBUL
Turkey Thursday accused Kurdish groups of responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 28 people in the capital, Ankara, yesterday, 27 of them members of the Turkish military.
In a televised speech, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that a member of the Syrian Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, had carried out the attack in collaboration with Turkeys Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
A Syrian national identified as Saleh Najjar from the Kurdish town of Amudah in northern Syria was identified as the perpetrator of the
suicide bombing, and nine other people have been detained in connection with the attack, Davutoglu said.
A direct link between the attack and the YPG has been established, Davutoglu said. The attack was carried out by the PKK together with a person who sneaked into Turkey from Syria.
The YPG swiftly denied any link to the bombing and said the Turkish government was accusing the YPG in order to justify attacks against the rapidly expanding Kurdish enclave known as Rojava that is in the process of being established in northern Syria.
Turkey has vowed to prevent the creation of an autonomous Kurdish entity along the Syrian border because of fears that it would encourage Turkish Kurds to seek their own state.
A statement issued by the group called the allegation part of an attempt by the Turkish prime minister to establish new foundations for their attacks on Rojava during the Syrian crisis.
We say to the people of Turkey and the international community: there is no relation between us, the YPG, and yesterdays incidents in Ankara, it added.
The bombing coincided with the launch by Turkey of artillery strikes into Syria to prevent Syrian Kurds advancing into a strategic corridor of territory near the Turkish border.
It raised the specter of an escalation in the cross-border fighting.
Turkeys President Recep Tayyep Erdogan vowed in a statement after the attack that Turkey would retaliate against the pawns that carry out such attacks . . . and the forces behind them.
Davutoglu said he also held embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad responsible because Assad and his government have acknowledged on a number of occasions that they provide arms to the YPG.
The charges against Syrian Kurds will also further complicate Turkeys fraught relationship with the United States, which has partnered with the YPG in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and has refused Turkish entreaties to abandon the alliance.
It is out of the question for us to excuse tolerance toward a terrorist organization that targets our people in our capital, Davutoglu said, in an apparent reference toward tensions with Washington.
There has been no claim of responsibility for Wednesdays attack, which struck a bus full of members of Turkeys military as it paused at a traffic light in a central Ankara neighborhood that houses the nations parliament and government headquarters, according to Turkeys official Anadolu News Agency. In addition to the deaths, at least 61 people were injured in the fireball that engulfed the bus and ignited trees in a nearby park at the height of the evening rush hour.
Cemil Bayik, one of the top leaders of the PKK who lives in northern Iraq, said he didnt know who had carried out the bombing but speculated that it may have been an act of retaliation for the massacres in Kurdistan a reference to a brutal military campaign being waged by Turkeys military against Kurds in southeastern Turkey.
The PKK has in the past frequently targeted military convoys and off-duty military personnel and the attacks have intensified as the Turkish military has stepped up its campaign. A bombing against a military vehicle on Thursday in southeastern Diyarbakir killed six people, the Turkish military said.
Turkish warplanes carried out fresh raids overnight against PKK bases in northern Iraq, a frequent retaliatory target of Turkish airstrikes.
source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...69d5ab-fe34-4250-8992-519eb6e46850_story.html