ANKARA — Turkey on Thursday identified the two assailants in the fatal attack at a defense industry firm in Ankara as operatives of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), as it ramped up strikes on the militant group in northern Iraq and a Kurdish offshoot in Syria.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya identified the attackers as Ali Orek and Mine Sevjin Alcicek.
“It has been confirmed that both terrorists who attacked TUSAS were members of the PKK,” Yerlikaya wrote on X. “We are determined to root out the treacherous terrorist organization that threatens our country’s unity, solidarity, and peace from our lands.”
Two assailants attacked TUSAS, Turkey’s state-run aerospace and defense company, on Wednesday, killing five people and wounding at least 22.
The PKK had not claimed responsibility for the attack at the time of writing.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that a total of “47 terrorist targets, including those at the leadership level, were destroyed” in airstrikes launched overnight by the army. Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler later said that among the targets, 29 were in northern Iraq and 18 in northern Syria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Russia to attend a BRICS summit, will cut his trip short and return home later today, according to Turkish media.
The PKK, which has been waging an armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and a majority of European countries. Turkey regularly strikes PKK headquarters in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan and surrounding areas.
Separately, Turkey’s Intelligence Organization, MIT, has also conducted airstrikes in northern Syria, targeting strategic sites, including military, intelligence, and energy facilities as well as logistics and ammunition depots, in areas controlled by the US-allied, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency reported on Thursday. Ankara has long equated the SDF with the PKK, pressing Washington to axe its alliance with the group formed to combat the Islamic State.
Ankara attack
Turkish authorities did not provide details on exactly how the attack in the Turkish capital unfolded. According to accounts by Turkish officials and information obtained from images and videos of the scene, a woman and a man arrived around 3:26 p.m. local time at TUSAS headquarters, roughly 35 kilometers north of central Ankara. They traveled by taxi and then killed the driver.
A video showed an explosion, which is believed to have been caused by the assailants detonating a device. Gunshots followed. Images circulating on social media showed the attackers advancing inside the compound with long-barrel rifles.
The attack killed five people and wounded 22 others. As of Thursday, 14 of the injured were still being treated at nearby hospitals, and one person was in critical condition.
Several explosions were heard in the aftermath of the attack, but it remains unclear whether they were controlled explosions conducted by the security forces.
Interior Minister Yerlikaya announced at the scene that the two assailants had been killed by security forces.
Victims funerals begin
The funeral of Murat Arslan, the taxi drive killed by the attackers, was held today in Ankara’s Kazan district, also the location of the TUSAS compound. Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus, several government officials and General Metin Gurak, chief of the Turkish General Staff, were among those in attendance.
TUSAS, a leading company in Turkey’s burgeoning defense industry, manufactures KAAN fighter planes, the country’s first national combat aircraft.
“It is not a coincidence that this site was targeted,” Guler said on Thursday. “This heinous attack is also a sign of how disturbed the terrorists and their backers are by our country’s rising brand, the symbol of our ideal of our full independence, which is our domestic and national defense industry.”
Critical timing
The attack comes at a critical time, amid reported possible plans by the ruling coalition to pursue diplomacy, in addition to military measures, to solve the 40-year-old armed conflict with the PKK.
On Tuesday, Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and top ally of Erdogan, suggested a reconsideration of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan’s sentence of life without parole if he agrees to declare the dissolution of the armed group.
Bahceli’s statement marked a major departure from the ruling alliance’s security-oriented policies. Bahceli even suggested that Ocalan could deliver such a speech in the Turkish parliament. Ocalan, 75, has been imprisoned on Imrali, an island off the coast of Istanbul, since 1999.
Ocalan meets with family
Ocalan met with his family on Thursday for the first time since 2020. He has largely been prohibited from speaking with anyone, including his lawyers or family members, except for a few rare instances since 2015.
Omer Ocalan, his paternal nephew who is also a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, announced the meeting on his social media account. The DEM has been campaigning for the removal of the isolation of the PKK leader for years.
“The visit took place as part of a family meeting,” Ocalan wrote on X. “The last face-to-face meeting took place on March 3, 2020.”
The PKK leader conveyed his readiness to prioritize dialogue rather than the armed conflict if the conditions allow it, Omer Ocalan said without providing further details.
