ISTANBUL (AFP) – Turkiye yesterday accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of carrying out a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul, saying a Syrian woman was in custody suspected of planting the device.
The bombing killed six people and wounded 81 others in the popular shopping street of Istiklal Avenue on Sunday shortly after 4pm.
There has been no claim of responsibility.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the bombing a “vile attack” that had the “smell of terror”.
A nine-year old girl and her father, as well as a 15-year-old girl and her mother were among those killed in the attack.
Istanbul police said yesterday that 46 people had been detained in total. Erdogan’s government accused the PKK of carrying out the explosion shortly before the president landed in the Indonesian resort island of Bali for the G20 summit.
Police footage shared with Turkish media showed a young woman in a purple sweatshirt being apprehended in an Istanbul flat.
“The person who planted the bomb has been arrested,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement yesterday.
Turkish police quoted by private NTV television, said the chief suspect is a Syrian woman working for Kurdish militants.