By Christina Drechsler
After the terrorist attack on the well-known Istiklal shopping street in Istanbul, which left six dead and injured 81, the police arrested a suspect.
The state-affiliated broadcaster TRT quoted the Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on Monday night as saying that emergency services arrested the person who planted the bomb. There are connections to the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK. Soylu announced retaliation, according to TRT.
Terrible scenes took place in the city center of the Turkish metropolis on Sunday afternoon: bloodied people lay on the street, eyewitnesses ran for their lives in panic.
4:20 p.m. local time. Thousands of people stroll down the shopping street leading to Taksim Square. Suddenly a huge bang, a huge explosion, a fireball rises. One second is quiet. Then screams, panic, people fleeing.
Rescuers are rushing to the site of the blast on the popular Istiklal pedestrian street Photo: picture alliance/dpa/AP
Horrible scenes in front of the “Mango” fashion store. People lie in their blood, covered by broken glass and concrete parts of the facades. Bodies are horribly disfigured. A stroller lies on its side. Injured people are crouching everywhere, holding their ears, their bleeding, badly injured arms and legs.
Photos and videos of people lying injured and lifeless on the ground are spreading rapidly on social media. The Turkish Broadcasting Authority issues a temporary news blackout for the media – “to avoid panic”.
Ambulances at the entrance to Istanbul’s Istiklal Street, where the explosion is believed to have taken place Photo: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS
A short time later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the explosion as a “sneaky attack”. Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Sunday evening that a woman is said to have detonated the bomb. Interior Minister Soylu initially did not confirm this information after the arrest was announced.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, among others, expressed her sympathy. “Terrible pictures come from Istanbul,” said the Green politician on Twitter. “My thoughts are with the people who just wanted to stroll down Istiklal shopping street on a Sunday and have now been the victims of a massive explosion.”
US President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre condemned the “act of violence”. “We stand side by side with our NATO ally Turkey in the fight against terrorism,” she said.
Bloody attacks had already been carried out in the Turkish metropolis in 2015 and 2016, including on Istiklal Street. Suspected: the Islamist terrorists of ISIS.
The banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK has also repeatedly carried out attacks in Turkey. The PKK is on terrorist lists in Turkey, Europe and the US, and has positions in south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Their headquarters are in the northern Iraqi Kandil Mountains. Ankara regularly takes action against the PKK and has maintained military posts in northern Iraq since 2016.