Minister: Seven detained over Istanbul attack

“After the incident on Tuesday … close to 500 artillery and tank shells were fired on Daesh positions in Syria and Iraq”, Davutoglu said, using an Arabic name for Islamic State.

Philip Hammond will also discuss the humanitarian crisis in Syria caused by the dual horrors of Bashar Assad’s brutal regime and IS during the meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It was unclear whether the arrests were made in direct connection with the Istanbul bombing, for which the Turkish prime minister has said ISIS was responsible.

Tourism from Russia, the second largest supplier of visitors, is already in a tailspin following the decline in the Russian economy and worsening relations between Moscow and Ankara after Turkey downed a Russian jet near the Syrian border in November.

Germany and Turkey are both part of a worldwide military coalition fighting ISIS that has recently accelerated its action against ISIS’ oil infrastructure.

“They (the Russian air force) shouldn’t obstruct Turkey s fight against Daesh …” “Certain countries are in an obstructive attitude in terms of Turkey’s air bombardments”.

“They should either destroy Daesh themselves or allow us to do it”, he told a news conference on Wednesday. Turkish officials say the bomber was affiliated with the Islamic State group.

He was not on Turkey’s watch list of suspected militants and no other countries passed on warnings about him, the Turkish government said.

Cappadocia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Turkey, is popular with tourists for its natural beauty, mountains and underground caves, as well as its rich history from the early years of Christianity.

Ambulances rushed to the scene and police have sealed off the area.

Mr Hammond said: “Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, is a vital friend of the United Kingdom and critical partner in tackling Islamist extremism, as we have seen so tragically in Istanbul this week”.

“There was panic because the explosion was violent”, he said.

“I didn’t finish the tour, you know, the tour I had bought”. We have no hard feelings towards Turkey. “We know there are some mad people out there”, he said.

The attack came two days after a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in Istanbul’s main tourist district, killing 10 Germans.

The prime minister also confirmed that six of those wounded by the attack were still in hospital, with the German Foreign Ministry saying that five Germans remained in intensive care. The group is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its western allies.

Police seized documents and CDs in a search of the premises where they were staying, Turkey’s Dogan News Agency said.

In a harrowing account, Şatiroğlu said she saw the man preparing to launch the attack after blending into a group of 33 German citizens visiting the Theodosius obelisk.

One person was detained late on Tuesday as part of the investigation, Ala said, but gave no details. He also said 11 people had been killed in the attack, that’s one more than the figure released Tuesday. Of that number, 847 were subsequently arrested, majority foreigners.