BAGHDAD — A Kurdish militant organization that has been banned announced on Friday that it was responsible for a recent attack on the headquarters of a significant defense contractor in Ankara, which resulted in the deaths of at least five individuals.
The military wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) issued a statement claiming that the attack on the aerospace and defense company TUSAS, which took place on Wednesday, was executed by two members from their “Immortal Battalion.” They described the assault as a reaction to ongoing “massacres” and other actions taken by Turkey against Kurdish areas.
According to reports, two assailants, a man and a woman, forcibly entered the TUSAS facility located on the outskirts of Ankara. They detonated explosives and opened fire within the premises, leading to the deaths of four employees. The perpetrators had arrived at the site using a taxi they had hijacked after killing the driver.
The attackers were ultimately killed during a confrontation with security forces, and over 20 individuals sustained injuries in the incident. In response, Turkey held the PKK responsible for the attack and swiftly initiated a series of airstrikes targeting suspected PKK positions in northern Iraq and its affiliates in northern Syria.
The assault on TUSAS has emerged amidst growing signals of a potential renewed dialogue aimed at resolving the decades-long conflict between the PKK and the Turkish military. Just earlier in the week, the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party, which is allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggested that Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, might be eligible for parole if he disavows violence and disbands his group.
In a message relayed through his nephew on Thursday, Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence imprisoned on an island off of Istanbul, expressed his willingness to pursue peace. However, the PKK’s military wing, known as the People’s Defense Center, asserted that the TUSAS attack was not a response to the recent “political agenda” and was conceived long before the current events.
The group explained their selection of TUSAS as a target, stating that the munitions produced there had been responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians, including women and children in Kurdish areas. TUSAS is involved in the design, production, and assembly of various military and civilian aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other defense-related systems, which have played a crucial role in Turkey’s combat against Kurdish militants.
On the same day, an Iraqi security official reported an escalation of airstrikes carried out by Turkish warplanes on PKK sites and associated forces in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq. These targeted assaults aimed at tunnels, military headquarters, and strategic positions belonging to the Workers’ Party and the Sinjar Protection Units, resulting in the deaths of five Yazidi individuals, according to local officials who requested to remain anonymous.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces noted that Turkish aerial attacks also affected civilian infrastructure, striking local bakeries, a power station, oil facilities, and police checkpoints, leading to the loss of at least 12 civilian lives and injuries to 25 others. The People’s Defense Center claimed that no PKK fighters were hurt in the airstrikes.
Additionally, authorities in Istanbul have detained at least 35 individuals suspected of having affiliations with the PKK, as reported by the state-run Anadolu Agency. The PKK has been engaged in a struggle for autonomy in southeastern Turkey, which has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people since the conflict commenced in the 1980s. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey and many of its Western allies.