Roj Bash Kurdistan

Turkey: several killed in Terrorist attack

At least four people have been killed and more than a dozen wounded in an attack at the Turkish Aerospace Industries’ headquarters near Ankara, officials said, as armed assailants entered the building amid gunfire and a loud explosion, local media said

Turkey’s interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said a “terrorist attack” was carried out at the headquarters of the country’s national aerospace company Tusaş, one of Turkey’s most important defence and aviation companies that produces combat and civilian aircraft. Owned by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation and government, it employs more than 10,000 people.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan, also called the incident a terrorist attack.

Local media reported a large blast outside the building in the Kahramankazan district of Ankara province on Wednesday, with broadcaster showing footage of armed assailants entering the Tusaş building.

Two attackers arrived near the facility by taxi and started shooting at civilians, according to Turkey’s NTV news channel.

Witnesses told Reuters that employees inside the building were taken by authorities to shelters and no one was allowed to leave for several hours.

Four people were killed and 14 others wounded, according to officials. Mr Yerlikaya said three of the injured are in critical condition.

Two of the assailants were killed, he added, amid claims that the attackers included a woman.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. “As soon as their identities are determined, we will share with you which terrorist organisation it is,” Mr Yerlikaya said.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/terroris ... TO=newsnow

Kurdish rebel group likely behind deadly attack

We’ve verified a second piece of footage from the attacks, by comparing it to what we know about the area. There are also other videos which show a similar area at a different time

It shows two people carrying large guns. There are bodies in the background.

The two armed individuals then approach a turnstile which is at the edge of the Turkish Aerospace Industries complex.

It’s likely this is footage of an early stage of the attack, but BBC Verify hasn’t been able to confirm the exact time that this video was filmed.

We've received an image of what appears to be a yellow taxi being removed from the scene.

As our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams reported earlier, videos circulating on social media appear to show two attackers arriving at the gates of the defence and aerospace company facility in what looks to be a yellow taxi.

As a reminder: few details have been confirmed about the nature of the incident and how it unfolded.

What is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)?

The PKK is considered a "terrorist organisation" by the UK, US and EU

The Turkish government has indicated that today's deadly attack in Ankara is “likely related” to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) - but what it?

Formed in the late 1970s, the group launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984

Since the truce ended, violence in south-eastern Turkey has led to thousands of deaths and caused many to be displaced, according to the UN

The PKK is listed as a “terrorist organisation” by the UK government, as well as by the US and European Union

As we've just reported, the Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya says today's attack is "most likely" related to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Shortly before Yerlikaya spoke, Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler also sought to blame the Kurdish rebel group, telling reporters: "We give these PKK members the punishment they deserve every time, but they never come to their senses."

Kurds deserve their homeland free from Turkish occupation

We've not had official confirmation yet of who is responsible, and the PKK has not taken responsibility for the attack.

Turkey says Kurdish rebel group 'most likely' behind attack as death toll rises to fivepublished at 19:10 British Summer Time

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya says the death toll from the attack has now risen to five.

He adds "the terrorist attack on [TAI] is most likely related to the PKK's [Kurdistan Workers' Party‘s] actions, this is our assessment."

"We will share the identifications and other evidence once they become clear," he says.

Hours on from the attack, emergency services continue to work at the scene.

In video taken from outside the building, blue and red flashing lights can be seen lighting up the streets, with a crowd of journalists and members of the public standing on the pavement.

A number of videos have emerged of the attack on a Turkish state-owned defence and aerospace company.

We still don't know who is responsible for the attack on a state-owned defence and aerospace company outside the Turkish capital.

But today's attack has taken place amid a debate in Turkey about reigniting peace talks with the PKK – a Kurdish rebel group, banned as a terrorist organisation in Turkey, the US and UK.

It also comes a day after government-ally Devlet Bahceli said PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan should announce the outlawed group’s "abolition" in parliament, which would suggest his release from prison.

Bahceli is a key player in Turkish politics, and his suggestion is considered to be significant given his opposition to previous peace talks.

The PKK has been fighting against the Turkish state occupation of Kurdish land for 100 since the Kurdish homeland was stolen and divided at end of Ottoman Empire

Ocalan, one of the founders of the PKK, was arrested in 1999 and has been in a high security prison since then

A reminder: no group has claimed responsibility for the attack and only a few details about the nature of the incident have been confirmed.

Four people have been killed and 14 wounded after attackers opened fire at a Turkish aerospace company near the capital, Ankara, in what officials are describing as a "terrorist attack"

Two suspects - one man and one woman - have been "neutralised", Turkey's interior minister says. It's not clear whether other people were involved.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he "condemns this vile terror attack", with other countries saying they stand in "solidarity" with Turkey.

One local journalist has told the BBC that relatives of employees are waiting near the building "trying to get information about their loved ones"

Germany - which has a large Turkish population - says its "solidarity goes out to our Turkish friends".

"We condemn all forms of terrorism in the strongest possible terms," the German foreign ministry says in a post on X.

The ministry says its embassy in Ankara and crisis response centre in Berlin are "monitoring the currently evolving situation very closely".

The US Embassy in Turkey has also posted on X, expressing its condolences to the families "of those lost and injured".

We've also heard from the Greek government. Its ministry of foreign affairs says that the attack should be "unequivocally condemned" and extends its condolences to victims' families.

Meanwhile, the UK embassy in Turkey says it "stands in solidarity" with its ally.

Ankara mayor 'deeply saddened' by attack.

The president, who is currently meeting with Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit in Russia, says that he extends his best wishes to the employees of TAI, who he says are “the source of pride of our defence industry”.

Erdogan headed to the Russian city of Kazan earlier today for the Brics summit of emerging economies, that includes India and China.

Speaking at the event, Putin condemned the attack on the aviation company near Ankara and expressed his "condolences", according to Reuters news agency.

We now have more on our earlier report about difficulties accessing social media sites.

A woman in Bodrum, western Turkey, has told the BBC she's facing the same problem.

"After the [attacks], the government restricted some social media apps such as X and Instagram […] and so we are using VPN applications to use these sites to get some information about what happened in Ankara,” she says.

We are still yet to hear from the Turkish government officially about any restrictions, but earlier, the Chairman of Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), Ebubekir Şahin, expressed his concern that "unconfirmed information" is circulating on social media.

At the scene "many people are waiting in front of the company, with the relatives of employees trying to get information about their loved ones", says one local television journalist.

Mevlut Isli tells BBC OS that it "is a major incident", with "a large number of ambulances" currently at the site.

We've received what appears to be CCTV footage of a gunman firing his weapon inside a Turkish Aerospace Industries building.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4ngqldqg8pt

Turkey Claims 32 PKK Targets Destroyed in

Western and Southern Kurdistan

The Turkish National Defense Ministry claimed on Thursday that Turkish forces destroyed 32 targets belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in an air operation conducted in the Kurdistan Region and Syria

In a statement cited by state-run media, the ministry noted that a significant number of PKK fighters were “neutralized”. The operation, targeting PKK and other affiliated groups, was conducted “under Turkey’s right to self-defense as outlined in Article 51 of the UN Charter.”

The ministry’s statement emphasized that the aim of the operation was to “prevent terror attacks” against civilians and security forces, as well as to ensure the country’s border security. Air operations continue, with further strikes expected as part of the ongoing campaign.

“The Turkish Armed Forces, drawing strength from our noble nation, will continue the fight against terrorism with determination and resolve for the survival and security of our country and people until not a single terrorist remains,” the statement read

The ministry also assured that precautions were taken to protect civilians, as well as historical, cultural, and environmental assets, during the airstrikes.

The operation follows a deadly attack on Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) facilities in Ankara earlier on Wednesday. Two suspects were “neutralized” during the assault, while five people were killed and 22 others injured. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya confirmed the attack and provided updates on the ongoing investigation. Turkish authorities frequently use the term “neutralize” to indicate that PKK members have either been killed or arrested.

https://www.basnews.com/en/babat/864406

Aerospace attackers belong to PKK

Turkey’s interior ministry said on Thursday that it has confirmed that both assailants killed during an attack on an aerospace facility in Ankara the day before are members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in posts on X that “Ali Orek, codename Rojger, a member of the PKK terrorist organization” was identified as the male attacker, while “Mine Sevjin Alcicek” was the female attacker and belonged to the same organization

The Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. (TAI) facilities in Ankara’s northern Kahramankazan district were attacked on Wednesday. Turkish authorities said two attackers were “neutralized” and an investigation was being launched.

“It became clear that both terrorists who attacked TAI were members of the PKK,” Yerlikaya added, saying that Ankara is determined to “eradicate from our lands the treacherous terrorist organization that threatens the unity, solidarity and peace of our country.”

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack occurred as efforts have been discussed for a resumption of stalled peace talks to end decades of conflict in Turkey.

On Tuesday, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli proposed allowing the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1997, to address the Turkish parliament and declare that the PKK has been eradicated and dissolved.

Bahceli, whose ultranationalist party is an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), added that Ocalan should benefit from the “right to hope” principle that provides the possibility of conditional release for prisoners, taking their behavior into account.

Turkey’s largest opposition party leader Ozgur Ozel later in the day expressed support for Bahceli’s comments and “any efforts to end terrorism.”

“If no more soldiers will die, if no more blood will be shed, if mothers’ tears will no longer flow, and if guns will no longer be pointed at soldiers, then every word said to achieve this is valuable to us as CHP,” Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) leader Ozel said to his parliamentary group.

On Wednesday, the PKK leader’s nephew, Omer Ocalan, a pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) lawmaker, met with him at Turkey’s Imrali Island prison, face-to-face for the first time since March 2020.

“The isolation continues,” Abdullah Ocalan said through a post on X by his nephew. “If the conditions are right, I have the theoretical and practical power to pull this process from the ground of conflict and violence to the ground of law and politics.”

In 2013, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government entered into peace talks with the PKK, paving the way for an unprecedented opening towards Kurds in the country. Kurdish politicians were able to speak freely about their rights, a topic that was previously taboo.

The peace talks, mediated by the DEM Party predecessor - the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) - collapsed in 2015 and were followed by intense urban fighting in the country’s southwestern Kurdish areas

Turkey quickly retaliated for Wednesday’s attack in Ankara by striking alleged PKK positions in Iraq and Syria. It claimed that 32 “targets belonging to terrorists were neutralized” and that measures were undertaken to ensure civilians and the environment were not harmed. Turkey uses the term “neutralize” to denote adversaries captured, wounded, or killed.

In a statement on Thursday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the partnered local ground forces in Syria of the US-led international anti-Islamic State (ISIS) coalition, said that Turkey’s airstrikes killed 12 civilians, including two children, and injured 25 others.

Ankara considers the Kurdish-led SDF and other groups in northeastern Syria (Western Kurdistan) to be offshoots of the PKK.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeas ... /241020242

Erdoğan vows to root out PKK terrorism

after attack linked to Syria

Operations against the U.S.-backed PKK/YPG in Syria and Iraq will continue until the end as Türkiye remains uncompromising on its anti-terrorism policy, the Turkish president says on his way back from a BRICS Summit in Russia after a PKK attack that killed five people in Ankara earlier this week

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday said the two perpetrators of a deadly terror attack in Ankara infiltrated Türkiye via Syria and vowed Türkiye would eradicate PKK terrorism “at its source.”

“We have especially discovered the terrorist attack was carried out after an infiltration via Syria and operations targeted 40 different targets overnight,” Erdoğan told reporters on a flight back from Russia's Kazan where he attended a BRICS summit.

Türkiye confirmed on Thursday the PKK/YPG terrorists were behind the attack on Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) that claimed the lives of five people.

Intensifying airstrikes destroyed hundreds of PKK/YPG targets in northern Iraq and Syria, as well as a ”significant number” of terrorists since Wednesday’s attack.

Türkiye will not compromise on its multilateral and all-encompassing policy of eradicating terrorism at its source, Erdoğan stressed, repeating a point Ankara has been touting in its operations against the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the U.S.-backed YPG.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 to achieve a so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern regions and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, as well as the United States and the European Union.

In Syria, the group operates through YPG, which has exploited the power vacuum during the Syrian civil war to occupy swathes of oil and gas-rich land and create a self-styled entity in the country’s northeast, something opposed both by Ankara and the Assad regime in Damascus.

The terrorist group has found a major ally in the U.S. to fight against Daesh terrorists and justifies its presence as a frontier against remnants of Daesh, a major strain on Turkish-American relations.

Erdoğan said the PKK/YPG was “bound to be abandoned by the United States after their time is up.”

“The terrorist group is wasting its efforts to seek the patronage of certain Western countries,” he added.

He argued the U.S. was “using” the region’s terrorist groups to serve American interests and the security of Israel, slamming Washington’s monetary and military support to Tel Aviv in the meantime.

“Türkiye has to consider an infiltration from Syria or any other place at any given moment,” Erdoğan pointed out. “Therefore we have to ensure our security.”

Türkiye currently controls two large strips of territory along its Syrian borders after expelling the PKK/YPG forces in successive campaigns. The aim is to create a security strip along its Syrian and Iraqi borders and sever the ties between the YPG and PKK strongholds in northern Iraq’s Qandil region.

Ankara often calls on its NATO ally to cut off its unconditional support of the YPG and the international community to take steps to ensure the territorial integrity of Syria threatened by the YPG.

Call to Assad

“We expect the Syrian administration to take steps with the understanding that a sincere and realistic normalization with Türkiye will benefit them too,” Erdoğan continued, warning of a “ring of fire in our region ever getting closer.”

The Turkish president over the summer voiced a plan to invite his estranged Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad for talks to reconcile ties severed in 2011 after Syria’s civil war began and Ankara deployed troops to back opposition forces and stave off PKK/YPG terrorists in the north.

Since 2022, top Syrian and Turkish officials, defense and foreign ministers, as well as intelligence chiefs have met for Russia-mediated talks, with Moscow pushing for a detente.

The last talks in Moscow, including Tehran, fell apart in May 2023.

Russia is still trying to facilitate a meeting between the two countries’ leaders to mend ties. Iraq also said in July that it may seek to try to bring the two leaders together.

Assad initially said Damascus was open to all initiatives to revive Turkish-Syrian relations “as long as they are based on respecting the sovereignty of the Syrian state over all its territory and fighting all forms of terrorism.” Later in July, he made clear that while he wanted Turkish troops to withdraw from Syria, that was not a precondition for talks.

Since then, however, the process has been essentially frozen.

Erdoğan was optimistic, expressing hope to see “constructive steps soon” on the matter.

He also said he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for assistance in ensuring the Syrian government engages with Ankara to normalize ties during their meeting in Kazan.

"Russia's influence over the Syrian government is known... We had a request to Mr. Putin to ensure the response of (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad to our call. Will Mr. Putin make a call for Assad to take this step? We leave that to time," Erdoğan said.

Solidarity for Palestine

Turning to Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip which has killed at least 42,000 Palestinians since last year, Erdoğan said he observed an “uncompromising stance” from Western nations like Italy, Spain, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia at the BRICS summit.

He said Türkiye has launched an initiative under the U.N. to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, as intensified Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon continue to claim hundreds of lives every day.

Erdoğan underlined that the number of countries supporting Ankara's call for an arms embargo on Israel is growing.

"We hope to succeed in this as Alliance of Humanity and open the door for lasting peace," he added.

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/erd ... syria/news

PKK Claims Responsibility for Aerospace Attack

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed on Friday responsibility for a recent armed attack targeting the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAŞ) in Ankara, which took place on Wednesday

In the statement, the People’s Defense Center (NPG), an armed wing affiliated with the PKK, confirmed that the attack on the TUSAŞ facility in the Turkish capital was carried out by their forces. “The military operation against the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAŞ) in Ankara was conducted by a special unit within our ‘Martyrs Brigade,’” the statement read.

The statement, which was obtained by BasNews, included images and emphasized that the operation was specifically targeted at TUSAŞ as part of the PKK’s ongoing campaign against Turkish authorities.

In response, Turkish officials announced on Friday that they had launched airstrikes, targeting 120 PKK locations, including military sites and service facilities in the Kurdistan Region and Western Kurdistan. Turkish authorities described these airstrikes as retaliatory actions against the Ankara attack.

According to Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, five people were killed and 22 others injured in the attack on the TUSAŞ facility. The Turkish airstrikes targeted military, service, and oil-related sites in Western Kurdistan in response to the Ankara operation.

https://www.basnews.com/en/babat/864523