Kurdish group claims responsibility for Ankara attack

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.

During rush hour on Wednesday, a vehicle bomb went off near a Turkish military barracks in Ankara, killing 28 people and injuring 61.

Turkey is a key transit country for millions of migrants fleeing the Middle East in a ques to reach Europe.

In October, suicide bombings blamed on ISIS targeted a peace rally outside the main train station in Ankara, killing 102 people in Turkey’s deadliest attack in years.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Ankara attack was carried out by operatives of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in cooperation with the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). About 2 million Syrian refugees are in Turkey. It has been pressing its ally, the United States, to recognize the Syrian Kurdish forces as terrorists.

The co-leader of the PKK umbrella group, Cemil Bayik, was quoted by the Firat news agency as saying he did not know who was responsible for the Ankara bombing.

Bystrom said Thursday “we have been in touch” with Sweden’s security police about the blast in Fittja, a suburb with a large immigrant population. The attack was the second deadly bombing in Ankara in four months.

The assault has helped the Syrian army come within 25 miles of the Turkish border for the first time in over two years. The fighting has displaced tens of thousands in the area as Turkey carried out large-scale military operations against PKK-linked militants. The conflict reignited in the summer after the collapse of a fragile peace process.

Salih Muslim told The Associated Press from his base in Europe Thursday that the Turkish accusations are “totally rejected”.

“We have no link to these bombings and with what is happening inside Turkey”, he says. ― Reuters picANKARA, Feb 18 ― Six Turkish security force members were killed and one soldier was seriously wounded in a blast in the mainly Kurdish southeast, the armed forces said in a statement today. Davutoglu also accused Syria’s government of responsibility for allegedly backing the Syrian Kurdish militia.

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy for Turkey’s Kurdish minority for decades and has carried out regular attacks on Turkish security forces.

The Syrian Kurdish PYD, or Democratic Union Party, denied involvement in Wednesday’s attack, which targeted a convoy outside a military barracks – stating the group does not consider Turkey as an enemy.

President Tayyip Erdogan also said initial findings suggested that the Syrian Kurdish militia and the PKK were behind the bombing and said that 14 people had been detained.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow is concerned about the escalation of tensions on the Syrian-Turkish border and Turkey’s plans to put boots on the ground in northern Syria. The Turkish jets attacked PKK positions in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region, hitting the group of rebels which it said included a number of senior PKK leaders, the military said. It said the raids were conducted on Wednesday night.

The reinforcements did not include fighters from the hardline Nusra Front or other jihadist groups, he said.

“If Turkey were to launch full-throttle battle against the PYD, this would nearly certainly hurt U.S.-Turkish ties, which is exactly what the PKK would want to achieve from the attack in Ankara”, Cagaptay said.

Yeni Safak, a newspaper close to the government, said the assailant who detonated the vehicle bomb near the military buses in an apparent suicide attack had been registered as a refugee in Turkey and was identified from his fingerprints.

He said the bomber was a Syrian national named Salih Necar.

A government official couldn’t confirm the reports.