Turkey’s interior minister has blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for an attack on a busy shopping street in Istanbul that killed six people and said a suspect had been arrested.
Six people were killed and 81 injured when Istanbul’s popular pedestrian Istiklal Avenue was hit by a bomb attack that Turkey’s president called an act of terrorism.
A suspect has been arrested, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement carried by the official Anadolu news agency on Monday. “According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organization is responsible,” he said.
While central Istanbul has been targeted by Kurdish separatists and Islamist militants in the recent past, the attack has not been officially claimed by any group so far.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, has waged an insurgency against Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.
Regularly targeted by Turkish military operations, the group is also at the heart of a row between Sweden and Turkey, which has blocked Stockholm’s entry into NATO since May, accusing it of leniency towards the PKK.
Speaking shortly before leaving for Tuesday’s G20 summit in Bali, Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke of a “treacherous attack,” adding: “Those responsible will be punished.”
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Videos posted online from the time of the attack showed terrified people running and trying to seek shelter in nearby shops as a fireball shot into the distance from the middle of the street. Shoppers who had previously been strolling in the afternoon sun hugged each other in fear before turning to flee.
Turkey’s media ombudsman, RTÜK, temporarily banned reporting on the blast, preventing broadcasters from showing the time of the blast or the immediate aftermath, “to avoid broadcasts that could create fear, panic and unrest in society and that they can serve the purposes of terrorist organizations”.
Web freedom watchdog NetBlocks said network data showed Turkish authorities were restricting access to social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook following the attack. “Access to information is vital in times of emergency. Research shows that social media restrictions increase disinformation after security incidents and attacks,” said NetBlocks founder Alp Toker.
The Turkish parliament recently passed a new law banning “disinformation,” under which social media users or journalists accused of violating it could be jailed for up to three years. RTÜK head Ebubekir Şahin warned citizens not to spread misinformation about the attack. “We are following developments closely. Please do not rely on information from unclear sources. We get information from reliable sources. We do not spread false information without knowing it,” he said.
Turkey was hit by a series of deadly attacks between 2015 and 2017 by Islamic State and outlaw Kurdish groups.
They include a suicide attack on the same street on March 19, 2016, which killed five people and injured 36. Turkish police later said the attack had links to IS.
In January of that year, a suicide bomber in the busy Sultanahmet district killed 13 people. In June, attackers armed with automatic weapons and explosive belts attacked the entrance to Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, killing 45 people besides the attackers and injuring more than 230.
“Without knowing who is behind this attack, the fact that this is the first terrorist attack in six years brings back terrible memories of 2015-16 when hundreds were killed across Turkey,” said Soner Cagaptay of the group think tank of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. .
“I think we could see a hardening of the electorate to the right as a result,” he added, pointing to elections to be held in Turkey next year, if not sooner. “I think the same trend line could hold again, that whoever shows up as a security against terrorism candidate could consolidate their base.”