Turkey said the attack on aerospace and defense company TUSAS was a target linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
The Turkish air force has attacked Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria in apparent retaliation for an attack on a major state-run defense company that killed five people and injured more than 20 others.
The Ministry of Defense announced on Thursday that 47 targets were “destroyed” in Wednesday’s airstrikes, but did not provide details of the locations hit. It said “all kinds of precautionary measures” had been taken to prevent harm to civilians.
Defense Minister Yasar Güler said Turkish forces attacked 29 targets in northern Iraq and 18 targets in northern Syria.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Thursday that Turkish air strikes in northern and eastern Syria had killed 12 civilians, including two children, and injured 25 others.
The SDF, which is spearheaded by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and includes Arab fighters, is a key partner in the US-led coalition against ISIL (ISIS). It controls a quarter of Syria, including oil fields and an area where about 900 U.S. troops are deployed.
Turkey says the YPG is a terrorist organization with close ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it blames for Wednesday’s bomb and gunfire attack by militants on the aerospace and defense company TUSAS near the capital. There is. Ankara designs and manufactures civil and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and other defense industrial and space systems.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry said that “59 militants were neutralized (this term usually means killed) in this airstrike.”
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote in X that Turkish investigators have identified one of the attackers as a “PKK terrorist” codenamed "Rodiger" and a woman named Mein Sevzin Arshcek.
Güler also pointed the finger at the PKK. “We will pursue them until the last terrorist is eliminated,” he said on Wednesday.
“None of the members of this dangerous terrorist organization will be able to escape the clutches of Turkish soldiers,” Güler said Thursday at a memorial ceremony at a defense industry fair in Istanbul.
There was no immediate statement from the PKK. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Security at the TUSAS headquarters was stepped up on Thursday, with troops searching vehicles and verifying people’s identities, state news agency Anadolu Agency said.
Funerals for some of the attack victims were held Thursday.
Istanbul’s two main airports have tightened security, DHA news agency and the private NTV channel reported.
Sabiha Gokcen Airport, on the Asian side of the city, issued a statement urging passengers to arrive “at least three hours” early to avoid delays due to increased security.
The attack on TUSAS was carried out by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which is allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Abdullah. It came a day after Mr Öcalan raised the possibility that he might be killed. If they renounce violence and disband their organization, they will be granted parole.
President Erdogan said he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of Russia’s BRICS developing countries meeting and condemned the “heinous terrorist attack.”
The Iraqi embassy in Ankara issued a statement condemning the attack.
“We affirm Iraq’s firm position in rejecting terrorism and extremism in all its forms and manifestations, and express the solidarity of the government and people of Iraq and the government and people of the Republic of Turkey,” the statement said. Earlier this year, Iraq announced a ban on the PKK.
Turkey regularly carries out airstrikes against the PKK in Iraq and Kurdish groups affiliated with the PKK in Syria.
UAVs manufactured by TUSAS are helping Turkey gain an advantage in the fight against Kurdish fighters.
Öcalan’s group has been fighting for autonomy in a conflict in southeastern Turkey that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Türkiye and its Western allies.
The country’s main pro-Kurdish DEM party also condemned the TUSAS attack, noting that it occurred at a time when the possibility of talks to end the conflict had been raised.
“Many are now wondering whether there is still room for peace,” Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu said in a report from Ankara.