PKK claims attack in Ankara

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Lerato Khumalo

Attack on defense company

PKK claims attack in Ankara

Updated 10/25/2024 – 5:00 p.mReading time: 3 minutes

Enlarge the imageFive people were killed in the attack in Ankara. (archive image) (Source: Ali Unal/AP/dpa/dpa-bilder)

A Turkish arms manufacturer is attacked in Ankara. The government quickly realized who was behind it. Now the banned Turkish Workers’ Party is commenting on this.

The banned Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) has claimed responsibility for the attack that killed five people in Ankara. This was written by the PKK-affiliated news agency ANF, citing the HPG, the organization’s military wing. The attack was carried out by an autonomous team from the “Immortality Battalion”.

The attack came shortly after a statement by the ultranationalists of the MHP party, which is a government partner of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP. She had discussed the possible release of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. In the HPG’s communication, a connection was explicitly denied.

Wednesday’s attack was directed against one of Turkey’s most important defense companies. Four of the dead were employees of the Tusas company. In addition to the fatalities, there were also 22 injured in the attack, which occurred on the outskirts of the capital Ankara. Two suspected attackers were killed, a man and a woman, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.

The PKK spoke of two dead “heroes”. Tusas is a “military target” because the weapons manufactured by the company kill “civilians in Kurdistan.” According to experts, the Turkish government is using the company’s drones in the fight against the PKK.

The Turkish government responded a few hours after the attack with air strikes on targets in northern Iraq and Syria. The PKK has its headquarters in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq. President Erdogan said the attack was the result of “infiltration from Syria.” In northern Syria, Ankara regularly takes action against the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG, which it sees as an offshoot of the PKK. Kurdish militias in Syria wrote of civilians being killed, the Turkish government spoke of dead “terrorists”.

The PKK has repeatedly carried out serious attacks in Turkey in the past, including in Ankara. The PKK has been fighting against the Turkish state since the 1980s and repeatedly carries out attacks, most recently in October 2023, when an assassin blew himself up at the entrance to the Interior Ministry. Since 2015, more than 7,000 people have been killed in the conflict, about 4,700 of them PKK militants, according to the International Crisis Group.

The PKK has moved away from its demand for its own state in favor of greater autonomy rights in the Kurdish areas. The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the USA.

On Tuesday, the head of the ultranationalist MHP Devlet Bahceli discussed the release of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned for more than two decades, as a possibility if he announced the disarmament of the organization.

Observers saw this as a sign that a new peace process could potentially take place between the government and the PKK. Öcalan had published a message through a visitor on Wednesday and was quoted as saying: “If the conditions are right, I have the theoretical and practical power to move this process from the level of conflict and violence to a political and legal level bring.”

The PKK said it welcomed Öcalan’s message and would evaluate it according to developments. The attack had been planned for a long time and had nothing to do with the current political discussion.

Bahceli’s intentions are interpreted differently by experts – for example as an attempt to enable Erdogan to have another term in office, which the constitution in its current form prohibits him from. He wants to get the pro-Kurdish Dem party on his side, which could give him the majority for a constitutional change – or for an early election requested by parliament. Another candidacy would also be possible.

From a foreign policy perspective, Turkey could see itself threatened by a conflagration in the Middle East due to the escalation in Gaza and Lebanon and therefore want to at least bring the conflict with the Kurds under control.