Kurdish militants claim deadly Ankara blast, vow to ‘destroy’ Turkish tourism

A Kurdish militant group formerly associated with the PKK has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack in Turkey. “Turkey, like every other nation around the world that is under the threat of terrorist attacks, has every right to try to do what it has to do to protect its people from those attacks”.

The military, meanwhile, said its jets conducted cross- border raids against Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, hours after the Ankara attack, striking at a group of about 60-70 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

After attending a ceremony at Ankara’s military hospital GATA, Davutoglu – with Interior Minister Efkan Ala and National Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz – laid a total of 28 carnations at the blast site on Merasim Street on Friday in memory of 28 people killed in the attack.

Erdogan said Turkey was “saddened” by the stubbornness of the West in not linking the YPG to the PKK which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and is recognized as a terrorist group by the United States and EU.

Wednesday’s attack – blamed on a Syrian suicide vehicle bomber – struck at the heart of Ankara, an area where institutions including the army headquarters and parliament are concentrated. For instance, in 2010, TAK claimed that they detonated a remote-control bomb next to a military bus on the outskirts of Istanbul, leaving five dead and 12 injured.

Turkey has lately been engaged in a severe war of words with the United States over America’s backing of the YPG and its refusal to recognise it as a terrorist group.

Another explosion hit a military convoy in the country’s volatile southeast on Thursday, killing at least six Turkish soldiers, the Turkish news media reported. The YPG is the military wing of the PYG, the Syrian affiliate of the PKK. Turkey, fearful such action might stoke separatist sentiment among Turkish Kurds, has responded by firing artillery shells at the militia across the border. Turkey views the YPG as a terror group because of its affiliation with the PKK. “It goes about not only the Kurds – Russia will defend the territorial integrity of Syria”, he added.

SDF gains in the area south of Azzaz triggered several days of Turkish shelling, mainly targeting areas recently captured by the group. It has been bombarding YPG positions in an effort to stop them taking the town of Azaz, the last stronghold of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels north of Aleppo before the Turkish frontier. The Turkish government announced Syrian Kurdish militia was responsible for the attack.

“The YPG groups that we’re supporting, there are various parts of the YPG on the ground in Syria”.

And the anti-Islamic State coalition, the Syria Democratic Forces, captured the northeastern stronghold of Shaddadeh on Friday.