Turkey blames Kurdish militants for Ankara bomb
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed a Syrian Kurdish militia fighter working with Kurdish militants inside Turkey for a suicide car bombing that killed 28 people in the capital Ankara, and he vowed retaliation in both Syria and Iraq.
A car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey's armed forces' headquarters, parliament and government buildings in the administrative heart of Ankara late on February 17.
Davutoglu said the attack was clear evidence that the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia that has been supported by the United States in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria, was a terrorist organisation and that Turkey, a NATO member, expected cooperation from its allies in combating the group.
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Turkey's armed forces also shelled YPG positions in northern Syria on February 18, a security source said. Davutoglu said the artillery fire would continue and promised that those responsible for the Ankara attack would "pay the price".
"The attack was directly targeting Turkey and the perpetrator is the YPG and the divisive terrorist organisation PKK. All necessary measures will be taken against them," Davutoglu said in a televised speech.
President Tayyip Erdogan also said initial findings suggested the Syrian Kurdish militia and the PKK were behind the bombing and said that 14 people had been detained.
The political arm of the YPG, denied involvement in the bombing, while a senior member of the PKK said he did not know who was responsible.
The attack was the latest in a series of bombings in the past year mostly blamed on Islamic State militants.
Turkey is getting dragged ever deeper into the war in neighbouring Syria and is trying to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast.
