Turkish jets launched air strikes inside Iraqi Kurdistan late Sunday, after a blast earlier the same day injured two police officers near the parliament building in Ankara.
Turkish jets launched air strikes inside Iraqi Kurdistan late Sunday, after a blast earlier the same day injured two police officers near the parliament building in Ankara. In the hours following the bombing, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had already vowed that “terrorists” would never achieve their aims.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies, claimed responsibility for the blast. It has waged a deadly insurgency against Ankara for four decades. The district targeted in the bombing is home to several other ministries and the Turkish parliament, which reopened as planned in the afternoon with an address from Erdogan.
“The villains who threaten the peace and security of citizens have not achieved their objectives and will never achieve them,” Erdogan said.
The interior ministry said two attackers had arrived in a commercial vehicle around 9:30 am (0630 GMT) in front of “the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our Ministry of the Interior, and carried out a bomb attack.”
“One of the terrorists blew himself up,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told journalists outside the ministry. “The other was killed by a bullet to the head before he had a chance to blow himself up.”
Two police officers were lightly injured in the exchange of fire, but their lives were not in danger, he added. The Ankara prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation and banned access to the area. Local media were asked to stop broadcasting images from the scene of the attack.