Istanbul blast: Turkish police arrest 22 suspects

Turkish police have arrested 22 suspects in connection with the blast that killed six people and injured 81 others in Istanbul’s main shopping street including the person suspected to have planted the bomb.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu blamed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara says is a wing of the PKK for the attack.

Soylu said the order was given in Kobani and the bomber passed through Afrin – both cities in northern Syria where Turkish forces have carried out operations against the YPG in recent years.

The woman suspected to have planted the bomb, with curly hair and in a purple jumper with the words ‘New York’ on it, was shown being brought into police headquarters in the TRT footage.

Six Turkish citizens, two members each of three families, were killed in the attack.

Of those wounded on Sunday, two of the five people being treated in intensive care were in a critical condition, the Istanbul Governor’s office said.

They were among the 31 wounded still in hospital, while 50 people had been discharged. No group has claimed responsibility.

The attack sparked concerns that Turkey could be hit with more incidents ahead of tense elections scheduled for June 2023.

A wave of bombings and other attacks began when a ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK broke down in mid-2015, ahead of a vote in November that year. The last major attack was a shooting at an Istanbul night club on 2017 New Year’s Eve.

Turkey has carried out three incursions in northern Syria against the YPG, including in 2019, seizing hundreds of kilometres of land. Earlier this year President Tayyip Erdogan said another operation was imminent.

Also Read: Six killed, dozens injured in Turkey blast

The United States has supported the YPG in the conflict in Syria, stoking friction with fellow NATO member Turkey.

Turkish authorities linked support for the YPG by Washington and others to the blast.

The presidency’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said such attacks “are direct and indirect results of the support some countries give to terrorist organisations.”

Soylu likened the U.S. condolences to “the murderer arriving as one of the first at the scene of the crime.”

The PKK has led an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in clashes. It is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

An offshoot of the PKK claimed twin bombings outside an Istanbul soccer stadium in December 2016 that killed 38 people and wounded 155.

Zainab Sa’id