Turkey Arrests 14 Over Ankara Bombing; Leaders Blame Kurdish Groups

Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has blamed Syria’s PKK-linked YPG group for a blast in the capital, Ankara, that killed at least 28 people.

He included the Syrian government itself in the blame for the Ankara explosion because of their backing of the Syrian Kurdish militia and appeared to rebuke the US and its allies for their continued support of the YPG.

The YPG has been one of the most successful forces in taking the fight to ISIS, and has proved a vital partner in the US campaign against the Islamist terror group.

Turkey regards the Syrian Democratic Union Party (YPD), and its military wing, the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) as terrorists due to their affiliation to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish rebel group.

The Turkish prime minister said the attack proved that the YPG was a “terrorist” organization. “The stance against the PYD has become a major bone of contention between allies USA and Turkey”.

In remarks to the press at the Turkish General Staff headquarters, Davutoglu revealed that the attack was carried out jointly by a Syrian-national YPG member and PKK members based in Turkey.

Six Turkish soldiers were killed when a military vehicle was hit by an explosion in southeast Turkey on Thursday.

Wednesday’s bombing comes after an attack in Ankara in October blamed on Islamic State, when two suicide bombers struck a rally of pro-Kurdish and labor activists outside the capital’s main train station, killing more than 100 people. “Despite the fact that their leader says they have nothing to do with this, the information and documents obtained by our interior ministry and all our intelligence organisations shows that [the attack] was theirs”, he said.

The group of 500 opposition fighters was in the border town of Azaz, after arriving from Turkey on Wednesday through the nearby Bab al-Salama crossing, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

No groups came forward initially, and Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy think tank, suggested the possibility of ISIS or PKK, which Turkey considers a terrorist group.

Concerns over Turkey’s shelling of the YPG over the weekend prompted the United States and France to urge restraint, and Syria to call on the U.N. Security Council it to intervene.

The YPG also issued a statement Thursday denying involvement, saying that it has “engaged in no military activity against the neighboring states or other forces”.

Worse, the Syrian government – which Turkey wants overthrown – is preparing to place rebel-held eastern Aleppo under siege. Turkey fears the Syrian Kurds want to carve out a continuous autonomous region across the border in northern Syria stretching from the Iraqi border nearly to the Mediterranean.

Turkey carried out strikes on PKK forces in north Iraq late on Wednesday. The claim couldn’t be verified.