Saturday 20 February 2016

Turkey blames Kurds, Syria for attack

14 arrested after deadly rush-hour bombing in Ankara; China urges anti-terrorist coordination

        Soldiers and security officers stand around a damaged military vehicle near Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Thursday. A bomb detonated by remote control killed at least six Turkish security force members traveling in a military vehicle in southeast Turkey on Thursday, security sources said, a day after a car bomb attack in the capital of Ankara killed 28 people .


Turkey's leaders on Thursday blamed Kurdish militant groups in Turkey and Syria, as well as the Syrian government, for the rush-hour suicide bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people on Wednesday.
It vowed strong retaliation against the perpetrators, which could further complicate the Syria conflict.
Turkish authorities have detained 14 people in connection with the attack and were trying to identify others. Turkey's military, meanwhile, said its jets conducted cross-border raids against Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, hours after the Ankara attack, striking at a group of about 60 to 70 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The car-bomb attack on Wednesday evening that targeted buses carrying military personnel also injured more than 60, as Turkey grapples with such issues as renewed fighting with the Kurdish rebels, the threat from Islamic State militants and the Syrian refugee crisis. The blast was the second deadly bombing in Ankara in four months.
On Thursday afternoon, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said the ambassadors of the five permanent UN Security Council member states had been invited to the ministry separately to be briefed on the attack in Ankara.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said a Syrian national with links to Syrian Kurdish militia carried out the attack in collaboration with the outlawed PKK. Davutoglu also accused Syria's government of responsibility for allegedly backing the Syrian Kurdish militia.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, denied the Turkish accusations. Salih Muslim Muhammad, a PYD co-chairman, said the Islamic State group was responsible for the Ankara attack.
The Ankara bombing and the subsequent accusations and denials came amid mounting tension between Turkey and the Kurds.

Turkish artillery has been shelling Kurdish fighters' positions in northern Syria to prevent them from advancing near the Turkish borders.

Yin Gang, a senior research fellow on Middle East affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that although the bomber reportedly had been recognized as a Syrian national, "it remains to be seen which group or force is behind him", since al-Qaida, Islamic State and other extremist groups are still in Syria.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular news conference in Beijing on Thursday that "China opposes terrorism of any form".
"China has consistently called upon all the relevant parties to strengthen coordination in the anti-terrorism field and ensure regional peace and stability," Hong said.
Meanwhile, Turkey's tourism industry has long been challenged by the security situation and political tension.

According to its tourism authority, the number of international tourists heading to Turkey dropped by 1.61 percent last year compared with 2014. This was the first decline in 25 years.
Feng Rao, head of the tourism research center of Mafengwo, a tourism information-sharing website, said the golden time for Chinese traveling in Turkey starts in April. "February is the off-season of tourism in Turkey," said Feng. "However, it will dampen the enthusiasm of Chinese tourists to visit Turkey", at least for now.

About 200,000 Chinese tourists visited Turkey in 2014, and the figure rose to 310,000 last year, according to Chinese Ambassador to Turkey Yu Hongyang
Saturday . 20 February 2016

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