Greece’s Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has sent a message of support to Turkey after a deadly explosion rocked a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul on Sunday. Six people have been killed and 81 others wounded after the explosion struck the packed Istiklal Avenue on Sunday afternoon.
Mitsotakis said on Twitter:
“Shocked and saddened by the news of the heinous attack in Türkiye. I wish a speedy recovery to the wounded and offer my sincere condolences to the families of the victims, to President @RTErdogan and to the Turkish people. Greece unequivocally condemns all forms of terrorism.”
The bomb which exploded in a popular pedestrian street in Istanbul on Sunday, killed six people and has wounded over 80.
A suspect is in custody Turkey’s interior ministry said Monday morning Turkish time.
The bombing has been deemed a terrorist attack by Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay according to state news agency Anadolu.
“We consider it to be a terrorist act as a result of an attacker, whom we consider to be a woman, detonating the bomb,” Oktay told reporters.
Turkish officials believe Kurdish separatists from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) were most likely behind the deadly bomb attack, the country’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, told reporters Monday.
“It is PKK/PYD terrorist organization according to our preliminary findings,” Soylu said in a press conference at the scene of Sunday’s attack on Istiklal Avenue, Istanbul.
Soylu did not elaborate or provide details of how investigators had reached this conclusion.
Footage which was posted online on Sunday showed ambulances, fire trucks and police at the scene on on Istiklal Avenue, a typically crowded thoroughfare popular with tourists and locals and lined with shops and restaurants.
In one video, a loud bang could be heard, and flames could be seen, as pedestrians turned and ran away. Social media users said shops were shuttered and the avenue shut down.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the act a “treacherous attack” and said its perpetrators would be punished.
Turkey suffered a chain of deadly bombings between 2015 and 2017 by the Islamic State group and outlawed Kurdish groups.
Five prosecutors have been assigned to investigate the blast, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Turkey’s media watchdog imposed temporary restrictions on reporting on the explosion — a move that bans the use of close-up videos and photos of the blast and its aftermath. The Supreme Council of Radio and Television has imposed similar bans in the past, following attacks and accidents.
