Turkey’s Defence Ministry announced on Sunday night that Turkish warplanes destroyed 20 targets of Kurdish militants in northern Iraq after the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, bombed the Turkish Interior Ministry’s Headquarter in Ankara.
“A large number of terrorists were inactivated,” the statement said.
It added that some 20 targets of the PKK were destroyed in the aerial operation, including caves, shelters and depots.
The Turkish air operation came after the PKK claimed responsibility for the Ankara bombing on Sunday.
With a statement reported by Fırat News Agency, ANF, the PKK said the attack was a “warning” against “inhumane practices and isolation policies within all dungeons in Turkey and Kurdistan, the use of chemical weapons prohibited by universal laws of warfare against our guerrilla forces, the ongoing plunder and massacres against the nature of Kurdistan, and the fascist oppression of the Kurdish people and all democratic circles”.
Two police officers sustained minor injuries in the bomb attack carried out just outside the ministry entrance.
Two individuals orchestrated the attack, with one detonating himself and the other being shot by the police, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Sunday.
The attackers had long barrelled weapons, a rocket launcher and other explosive materials.
One civilian was also killed by the attackers in Kayseri province, some 350 kilometres east of Ankara, when they stole his car to use in the attack.
In response to the incident, the Prosecutor’s Office in Ankara started an investigation. Additionally, a court imposed a media access and publication ban to manage the flow of information regarding the attack.
The attack coincided with the official re-start of parliamentary work in Ankara and several roads and streets were blocked as a measures after the attack.
However, parliament reconvened later in the afternoon, marking its return to work after a three-month hiatus with official ceremonies and speeches.
“The villains who threaten the peace and security of citizens have not achieved their objectives and will never achieve them,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday in his speech in parliament.
Source : Balkan Insight
