Turkey says its warplanes have carried out raids on Kurdish targets in northern Iraq following a suicide attack on a government building in capital Ankara.
A Turkish interior ministry statement on Sunday said some 20 targets of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) group were “destroyed” in the aerial operation, including caves, shelters and depots.
The military ramped up air strikes in Iraq’s PKK bases in Gara, Hakurk, Metina and Qandil, the statement said.
The strikes came hours after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance of the interior ministry building in Ankara, injuring two police officers. A second assailant was killed in a shootout with police.
A news agency close to the PKK said the group claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.
A statement from the ANF news agency said the PKK planned the bombing to coincide with the opening of the parliament. It said the attack was carried out by “a team of ours linked to our Immortals Battalion” group.
The PKK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, the two attackers had seized the vehicle from a veterinarian in the central province of Kayseri, a city 260km (161 miles) southeast of Ankara.
CCTV footage showed a vehicle pulling up to the interior ministry’s main gate and one of its occupants quickly walking towards the building before being engulfed in an explosion, while the other remains on the street.
The blast killed one of the attackers and authorities “neutralised”, or killed, the other, the interior minister said of the incident that rattled a central district that is home to ministerial buildings and nearby parliament.
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