Interior minister Suleyman Soylu announced that Turkish forces have arrested the suspect accused of leaving a bomb on Istiklal street. “Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Kobane in northern Syria,” he said.
According to Turkish officials, the woman was sitting on the bench for at least forty minutes. Then the blast detonated just a few minutes after she walked away.
No details about the woman were revealed.
Turkey has been trying to make it’s case to the world that the danger of the PKK aligned groups operating in northern Syria is real. Ankara demands the handing over of suspects hiding in Sweden to Turkey before they will agree to Swedish entry into NATO. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been holding onto this demand even in the face of intense pressure from Washington to relent.
