Turkey Says Istanbul Bomb Suspect is Syrian National with Ties to Kurdish Groups

On Monday, Turkey accused a Syrian woman of planting a bomb that killed six people in Istanbul, blaming the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) of carrying out the attack.

Two girls, aged nine and 15, were among those killed when the bomb exploded shortly after 4:00 pm (1300 GMT) on Sunday in Istiklal Avenue, home to smart boutiques and European consulates. More than 80 other people were wounded.

"The person who planted the bomb has been arrested," Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement broadcast by the official Anadolu news agency early Monday.

"According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organisation is responsible," Soylu said.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, has waged a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.

It denied any role in the latest attack.

"Our people and the democratic public know closely that we are not related to this incident, that we will not directly target civilians and that we do not accept actions targeting civilians," the group said in a statement published by the Firat news agency, close to the PKK.

Police, quoted by private NTV television, said the chief suspect is a Syrian woman working for Kurdish militants. Forty-six people were detained in total, police said.

Police footage shared with Turkish media showed a young woman in a purple sweatshirt being apprehended in an Istanbul flat.

Police, cited by NTV, named her as Alham Albashir and said she was arrested at 02:50 am in an Istanbul suburb. Local media said she was a trained PKK intelligence operative.