Turkey's Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu today blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for yesterday's Sunday attack in central Istanbul - which left at least six people dead and over 80 others injured, while announcing that more than twenty suspects had been arrested, including the person who allegedly left the explosive device on Istiklal Avenue, the notorious pedestrian street that was crowded with Istanbulites and tourists.
«The person who planted the bomb has been arrested. Based on our conclusions, the PKK terrorist organization is responsible» for the bomb blast, Soylu said, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu News Agency and other Turkish media.
Another 21 suspects were also arrested, he added.
The Interior Minister accused the Kurdish forces that control a large part of north-eastern Syria - which Ankara describes as «terrorists» - of being behind yesterday's attack.
«We believe that the order for the attack was given by Kobani,» Soylu said.
This town is notorious because of the 2015 battle when Kurdish forces repelled Islamic State (IS) jihadists. Kobani is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the People's Protection Units (YPG), allies of the PKK, are the main component.
Yesterday's attack, for which no responsibility has yet been claimed, not only killed six people, but also injured 81 others, about half of whom are in hospital. It happened at around 16:20 (local time; 15:2o GMT).
Access to the pedestrian street, which was blocked after the attack, has been allowed again since the morning, Turkish media reported.
Soylu did not specify the circumstances under which the «person» who allegedly planted the bomb was arrested, nor whether it was a «woman», as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his vice president Fuat Oktay asserted last Sunday night.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozda had earlier referred to a «bag» left on a bench: «A woman was sitting on a bench for 40 to 45 minutes and, one or two minutes later, there was an explosion. All data on this woman is under investigation,» he continued.
«Either this bag had a timing device, or someone detonated it remotely,» he added.
President Erdoğan condemned the «vile attack» before leaving for Indonesia and the G20 meeting in Bali: he spoke of an act that smacks of «the scent of terrorism» and added that «a woman was involved in it».
He promised that the perpetrators would be «revealed», adding that «our people can be sure that they will be punished».
Mr Erdogan had already faced a campaign of terrorist acts in 2015-2016.
PKK and NATO
The explosion, which was very powerful, was heard at a great distance and caused panic among passers-by.
«People were running in panic. The crash was enormous. Black smoke was rising. The sound was very loud, almost deafening,» recounted an eyewitness, Kemal Denizzi, 57, who saw many people thrown to the ground.
The PKK, a Kurdish separatist faction that took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, is designated a «terrorist» organisation by Ankara, the US and the EU. Over 40,000 people, mostly minorities, have been killed in the war since then, mainly in south-eastern Turkey.
The organisation has claimed responsibility for many bloody attacks in Turkey.
In December 2016, the double attack near the stadium of Istanbul's Besiktas football team -47 dead, including 29 police officers, 160 injured- was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a Kurdish radical organisation considered to be affiliated to the PKK.
The Kurdish separatist movement is at the heart of the brinkmanship between Turkey and Sweden: since May, Ankara has been blocking Stockholm's admission to NATO, accusing it of tolerance towards the PKK.
The Turkish government demanded the extradition of members of the Kurdish separatist faction by the Swedish authorities in the memorandum signed in June with Sweden and Finland, the other Nordic country seeking to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which Ankara sees as an obstacle to the project.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson went to Ankara last week and promised Mr Erdogan that Stockholm would mobilise to allay Turkish «concerns».
The Swedish parliament is preparing to vote to revise the constitution to make draconian anti-terrorism legislation.
The PKK and organisations that Ankara says are linked to it are the target of large-scale Turkish military operations in northern Iraq and Syria.
Last month, the Turkish authorities were accused - denied - by the Turkish opposition of using chemical weapons against PKK militants. The separatist group released a list of 17 names, accompanied by photographs, of persons who presented themselves as «martyrs», killed by the chemical gases allegedly used by the Turkish army.
