Okt 2, 2023. Posted by Balkan Periscope - Hellas
The attack
occurred hours before Parliament was set to reopen after its three-month summer
recess with an address by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
There was swift retribution from Turkey on Sunday, with 20 airstrikes targeting the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, after a group linked to it said it was behind a suicide bomb attack in Ankara.
A suicide
bomber detonated an explosive device in the heart of the Turkish capital,
Ankara, on Sunday morning. A second assailant was killed in a shootout with police,
the interior minister said.
Two police
officers were slightly injured during the attack near an entrance to the
Ministry of Interior Affairs, Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X, the social
media platform formerly known as Twitter. The assailants arrived at the scene
inside a light commercial vehicle.
“Our heroic
police officers, through their intuition, resisted the terrorists as soon as
they got out of the vehicle,” Yerlikaya later told reporters. “One of them blew
himself up while the other one was shot in the head before he had a chance to
blow himself up.”
“Our fight
against terrorism, their collaborators, the (drug) dealers, gangs and organized
crime organizations will continue with determination,” he said.
In a
hard-hitting speech at the opening of parliament three hours after the attack,
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made a distinctly unilateral statement
with a message for Turkey's neighbours in Europe.
He said: "As Turkey, we have no expectations from the European Union, at whose door
we have
been kept waiting for 60 years. If they reverse their injustices, especially
the visa
imposition, which they use as a veiled sanction against us, they will correct
their own
mistakes. If they don't, they completely lose the right to expect anything from
us."
The
minister did not say who was behind the attack and there was no immediate claim
of responsibility. Kurdish and far-left militant groups as well as the Islamic
State group have carried out deadly attacks throughout the country in the past.
Last year,
a bomb blast in a bustling pedestrian street in Istanbul left six people dead,
including two children. More than 80 others were wounded. Turkey blamed that
attack on the PKK, as well as Syrian Kurdish groups affiliated with it.
Security
camera footage on Sunday showed a vehicle stopping in front of the ministry,
with a man exiting it and rushing toward the entrance of the building before
blowing himself up. A second man is seen following him.
Earlier,
television footage showed bomb squads working near a vehicle in the area, which
is located near the Turkish Grand National Assembly and other government
buildings. A rocket launcher could be seen lying near the vehicle.
Turkish
authorities later imposed a temporary blackout on images from the scene.
Police
cordoned off access to the city centre and increased security measures, warning
citizens that they would be conducting controlled explosions of suspicious
packages.
The two
police officers were being treated in a hospital and were not in serious
condition, Yerlikaya said.
Egypt,
which has normalised ties with Turkey after a decade of tensions, condemned the
attack. A terse statement from the Foreign Ministry offered Egypt’s solidarity
with Turkey.
The US
Embassy in Ankara and other foreign missions also issued messages condemning
the attack.
Erdogan’s
speech will be closely watched for indications as to when Turkey’s parliament
may ratify Sweden’s membership in NATO.
Stockholm
applied for NATO membership alongside Finland following Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine last year. While Finland has since joined, Turkey blocked Sweden’s
membership in the military alliance, accusing it of being soft on groups that
Turkey considers to be security threats. Only Turkey and Hungary have yet to
ratify Swedish membership.
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