Interior minister says police have arrested ‘the person who left the bomb’ that exploded on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue.
Turkish police have arrested a suspect for the bombing in central Istanbul that left at the least eight individuals useless and 81 others wounded, based on an official.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu advised reporters on Monday that the suspect in custody was the “person who left the bomb that caused the explosion” on a busy thoroughfare in Turkey’s largest metropolis.
#URGENT Person who left bomb that prompted explosion Sunday on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue arrested by police, says Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu pic.twitter.com/I08OTC4rPb
— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) November 14, 2022
Soylu blamed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for Sunday’s blast on Istiklal Avenue, saying, “Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Ayn al-Arab in northern Syria” the place he mentioned the group has its Syrian headquarters.
“We will retaliate against those who are responsible for this heinous terror attack,” he mentioned, including that the loss of life toll has risen from six to eight and that 81 individuals had been wounded, with two of them in “critical condition”.
No group has claimed duty for the blast but.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday described the explosion as “treacherous” and mentioned it “smells like terrorism”. Speaking earlier than his departure to the G20 summit in Indonesia, Erdogan mentioned preliminary data advised {that a} “woman had played a part” in the assault.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag advised A Haber tv in a while Sunday that the girl was seen sitting on one of many benches on Istiklal Avenue for greater than 40 minutes.
The explosion occurred simply minutes after she obtained up, he mentioned.
“There are two possibilities,” he advised A Haber. “There’s either a mechanism placed in this bag and it explodes, or someone remotely explodes [it]”.
Al Jazeera has obtained photos of the girl suspected to be behind the bombing.
#الجزيرة تحصل على صور من زوايا مختلفة للسيدة المشتبه في أنها تقف وراء هجوم #اسطنبول pic.twitter.com/DgdojrKMMY
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) November 13, 2022
Soylu’s announcement on Monday didn’t add any particulars concerning the lady.
Istanbul and different Turkish cities have been focused in the previous by Kurdish separatists, ISIL (ISIS), and different teams, together with in a sequence of assaults in 2015 and 2016.
These embrace twin bombings outdoors an Istanbul soccer stadium in December 2016 that killed 38 individuals and wounded 155. The assault was claimed by an offshoot of the PKK, which has saved up a lethal marketing campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey for the reason that Nineteen Eighties and is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
Regularly focused by Turkish army operations, the group can also be on the coronary heart of a tussle between Sweden and Turkey, which has been blocking Stockholm’s entry into NATO since May, accusing it of leniency in the direction of the PKK.
Condemnations of Sunday’s assault and condolences for the victims rolled in from a number of international locations, together with Greece, Egypt, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the US, Azerbaijan, Italy and Pakistan.
Greece “unequivocally” denounced the blast and expressed condolences, whereas the US mentioned it stood “shoulder-to-shoulder with our NATO ally in countering terrorism”.
French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned in a message to the Turks: “We share your pain. We stand with you in the fight against terrorism”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy additionally tweeted in Turkish: “The pain of the friendly Turkish people is our pain.”
European Council President Charles Michel additionally despatched condolences, tweeting: “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
