Turkish police have arrested 46 people over the explosion in central Istanbul that left at least eight people dead and 81 others wounded, Istanbul police have said.
Interior minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters on Monday that the suspects included the “person who left the bomb that caused the explosion” on a busy thoroughfare in Turkey’s largest city.
Soylu blamed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for Sunday’s blast on Istiklal Avenue, saying: “Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Ayn al-Arab [Kobane] in northern Syria,” where he said the group has its Syrian headquarters.
“We will retaliate against those who are responsible for this heinous terror attack,” he said, adding that the death toll has risen from six to eight and that 81 people had been wounded, with two of them in “critical condition”.
Justice minister Bekir Bozdag told A Haber television later on Sunday that a woman was seen sitting on one of the benches on Istiklal Avenue for more than 40 minutes.
The explosion occurred just minutes after she got up, he said.
“There are two possibilities,” he told A Haber. “There’s either a mechanism placed in this bag and it explodes, or someone remotely explodes [it]”.
