Turkey accuses a Syrian Kurd of Ankara bombing and vows to retaliate

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, right, walks with Hulusi Akar, chief of the General Staff of the Turkish armed forces, during a condolence visit at the General Staff headquarters in Ankara on Feb. 18, 2016, the day after a bombing killed 28 in the capital. (Hakan Goktepe/Turkish prime minister’s press office via AFP/Getty Images)

By Liz Sly-February 18 

ISTANBUL — Turkey blamed Syrian Kurds on Thursday for a suicide bombing that killed 28 people in the capital, Ankara, and vowed to retaliate, threatening new complications for the war in neighboring Syria and for the U.S. fight against the Islamic State.

The bombing coincided with heightened tensions between the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Turkey, which has fired artillery into Syria in recent days to prevent Kurdish advances toward the Turkish border. The allegation that the YPG was involved in the bombing Wednesday night of a bus carrying Turkish military personnel raised the specter of deepening involvement by Turkey in the war in Syria. Of the fatalities, 27 were Turkish service members.

The attack also served to highlight growing fissures between Turkey and the United States over U.S. support for the YPG in the fight against the Islamic State. Washington in recent days has strenuously rejected Turkish efforts to force it to renounce the YPG, which Ankara calls a terrorist organization.

As Turkey resumed the artillery strikes late Thursday, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United States still had not determined responsibility for the bombing. “As far as we’re concerned, that’s an open question,” he said.

“Clearly it is an act of terrorism,” he added, urging both sides to show restraint and to focus on the fight against the Islamic State.

“Some of the strongest fighters against Daesh inside Syria have been Kurdish fighters,” Kirby said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “The side that we all need to be on here is the counter-Daesh side.”

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu earlier said a member of the YPG carried out the bombing in collaboration with Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has been waging a decades-long war for autonomy on behalf of Kurds in Turkey. He also accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of complicity, citing claims in the past by Assad and members of his government that they supply the YPG with arms.                                  

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