Syrian Kurdish PYD head denies responsibility for Ankara attack

Salih Muslim, a Syrian Kurdish leader, nevertheless rejected Turkey’s allegation, saying his group had “no link to these bombings”. It has received substantial backing from the U.S., Germany and other Western countries in its fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq.

Cemil Bayik, the leader of a Kurdish umbrella organization that includes the PKK, told the pro-Kurdish Firat News agency that he did not know who was behind it. But he suggested that Kurdish militants, angered by Ankara’s military operations in southeastern Turkey, may have acted independently.

Ankara has always been critical of Washington’s open support for the PYD and its armed wing YPG, and its objection to consider the PYD as a terrorist group. “The YPG is a tool of the Syrian regime and the regime is directly responsible for the attack”, the prime minister said Thursday.

Turkish army service busses burn after an explosion on Wednesday in Ankara, Turkey.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the spate of deadly strikes in Turkey on jihadists and Kurdish rebels.

“We call on all the countries to take a clear stance against those terrorist organisations…either stand by the side of Turkey as a state or take side with terrorists”.

Merkel has been working closely with Turkey lately in an effort to reduce the flow of migrants to Europe.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who had been due to attend meetings in Brussels on the migration crisis on Thursday, cancelled the trip, an official in his office said.

Authorities suspect a bomb-laden vehicle caused the explosion, Kiliclar said, according to Anadolu.

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 vehicle bomb went off in a downtown area packed with government buildings, targeting buses carrying military personnel.

The attack came at a tense time when the Turkish government is facing an array of challenges.

Turkey has looked on with concern as the Kurds have carved out autonomous regions and expanded territory following the strategic withdrawal of Assad’s forces from Kurdish areas in 2012. The conflict reignited in the summer after the collapse of a fragile peace process.

Since Morsi’s ouster, terrorist attacks in Egypt have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, mostly claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) militant group.

Turkey will stress the PYD point, because the United States says it is cooperating with the PYD, because of a lack of alternatives in Syria.

Eighty-one people were wounded, seven of whom are still in intensive care, the health ministry said. It was the second deadly bombing in Ankara in four months.

But the YPG has been one of the most successful groups fighting ISIS, so now they’re getting help from the U.S.-led coalition.

Complicating things is that the PYD/YPG is supported by the U.S., which views the Syrian Kurdish fighters as some of the best forces against IS.

Turkey’s 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 PKK rebels.

Tareq Abu Zeid, a rebel spokesman fighting with the SDF in northern Aleppo said the allied forces had “all the possible options to respond to the Turkish shelling of their positions in Syria”, in an interview with Syria Direct this past Saturday.