Istanbul bombing: Erdogan says those responsible ‘will be punished’

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Sunday’s bombing in central Istanbul a “treacherous attack” and said those “responsible will be punished”.

His comment followed the arrest of a woman suspected of deploying the bomb and 45 others allegedly involved. Six people were killed and more than 80 injured in the attack. Interior minister Suleyman Soylu said the device exploded in the popular pedestrianised İstiklal Avenue when it was thronged with shoppers and tourists.

The authorities said they have identified the culprit as a Syrian woman who sat on a bench for 45 minutes before leaving a package that exploded minutes later. She was detained in an overnight police raid and is reported to have admitted being trained by Kurdish militants.

Mr Soylu said initial investigations have revealed the attack was carried out by the separatist Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its ally the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the latter based in northeast Syria. Both have denied involvement.

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“We have evaluated that the order for the attack came from Kobani,” Mr Soylu said, adding that the bomber had “passed through Afrin in northern Syria” before entering Turkey.

Kobani is a Kurdish-majority Syrian town on the Turkish border where the YPG – with US air support – gained respect and fame in 2015 by routing the Islamic State terror group. Thereafter, the US relied on the YPG for ground forces in the campaign in Syria against Islamic State, also known as Isis. Despite Turkish opposition, the US continues to back and protect the YPG’s autonomous administration in eastern Syria. Afrin was a Kurdish canton in northwest Syria which Turkey captured from the YPG in 2018, forcing thousands of Kurds to flee.

[ Istanbul: Six killed and more than 80 injured in explosion on busy street ]

This spring, Mr Erdogan declared his intention to invade Kobani and other Kurdish-held towns with the aim of eliminating the threat to Turkey posed by the YPG. This was to be a continuation of his campaign launched in 2019 to establish a 30km-wide security zone along the Syrian side of the border. While Mr Erdogan has so far been deterred by strong US and Russian pressure, the attack in Istanbul could provide him with justification to mount the threatened offensive against the YPG.

Action against the Kurds would boost his standing with Turkish voters in advance of next year’s presidential poll. Mr Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said: “The international community must pay attention. Terror attacks against our civilians are direct and indirect consequences of some countries’ support for terror groups. They must immediately cease their direct and indirect support if they want [Turkey’s] friendship.”

İstiklal Avenue was previously targeted in 2016 during a series of bombings in Istanbul, Ankara and other Turkish cities. These attacks, blamed on the PKK and Islamic State, killed nearly 500 and wounded more than 2,000.

The YPG’s parent movement, the PKK – designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the European Union – has waged a four-decade secessionist struggle against Turkey during which 40,000 people have been killed. In 1983, Turkey began conducting cross-border ground and air operations against the PKK in Iraq.

The US, France, Italy, Greece, Pakistan, Ukraine and other countries have condemned the bombing and expressed solidarity with Turkey.