The Syrian city of Manbij is the location from which the order to commit a recent terrorist attack on Istanbul’s Istiklal Street came, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said at the parliament on Friday.
"The attack in Istiklal Street was committed from Manbij," the Anadolu Agency said, citing the minister.
Soylu pointed out that members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Democratic Union Party of Syrian Kurds (PYD) (both are banned in Turkey), as well as US forces, remain present in Manbij.
"The Istiklal terrorist attack is yet another massacre carried out by the PKK. We have experienced them many times before. We immediately found the perpetrator and are now unraveling the whole tangle that drags behind him," the minister said.
In addition, Soylu underlined that Turkey had been fighting the PKK and other Kurdish organizations, which Ankara designates as terrorist, but those organizations enjoyed "proactive foreign support." "In the past three years alone, the US Senate has provided $2 billion in aid to the PKK," he said.
Six people were killed and more than 80 were wounded in the explosion that rocked Istiklal Street in Istanbul on November 13. According to investigators, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and its Syrian branch affiliated with the PYD, which are banned in Turkey, were involved in the attack.
