Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Kurdish Rebels Behind latest Turkish Resort Blast: Reports | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page

ANKARA (AFP) -An explosion which killed three people in Turkey’s popular Mediterranean resort of Antalya was caused by a bomb placed by separatist Kurdish rebels, Turkish newspapers reported.

The blast occurred Monday between two mopeds parked opposite a market near a municipal building, killing three Turks and wounding 20 others, local police spokesman Akif Aktug said.

It came just a day after nearly 30 people were injured in a series of explosions in Marmaris, another Turkish seaside town, and the country’s biggest city Istanbul.

A radical Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility for both attacks.

The mass-circulation Sabah newspaper said that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting Ankara since 1984, was behind the explosion in Antalya and that police were looking for three suspects in the city which is surrounded by several other resorts and is popular with both European and Turkish tourists.

Local police and officials have yet to announce the cause of the blast.

A Kurdish group calling itself the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) claimed on Monday responsibility for the Marmaris and Istanbul blasts.

Turkish officials say TAK is a front for PKK attacks on civilian targets; the PKK claims TAK is a splinter group over which it has no control.

TAK, which in April threatened to attack tourist destinations, has claimed responsibility for 12 other bomb attacks in urban centres across the country this year in which six people were killed and more than 100 others injured.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and the European Union, took up arms in 1984.