Six people died and 81 were injured whe Istanbul’s popular pedestrian thoroughfare İstiklal Avenue was hit by a bomb attack that Turkey’s president described as an act of terrorism. A suspect has been arrested, interior minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement broadcast by the official Anadolu news agency on Monday. “According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organisation is responsible,” he said. While central Istanbul has been targeted by Kurdish separatists and militant Islamists in the recent past, the attack has not been officially claimed by any group so far. The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara as well as its western allies, has kept up an insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in south-eastern Turkey since the 1980s. Regularly targeted by Turkish military operations, the group is also at the heart of a tussle between Sweden and Turkey, which has been blocking Stockholm’s entry into Nato since May, accusing it of leniency towards the PKK. Speaking shortly before departing for Tuesday’s G20 summit in Bali, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke of a “treacherous attack”, adding: “Those responsible will be punished.” Location map Videos posted online from the moment of the attack showed terrified people running and trying to seek cover in nearby shops as a fireball billowed overhead in the distance from the middle of the street. Shoppers who had previously been strolling in the afternoon sun clutched each other in fear before turning to run away. Turkey’s media ombudsman, RTÜK, placed a temporary ban on reporting of the explosion, preventing broadcasters from showing the moment the blast struck or the immediate aftermath, “to avoid broadcasts that may create fear, panic and turmoil in society and may serve the purposes of terrorist organisations”. The web freedom monitoring organisation NetBlocks said network data showed the Turkish authorities were restricting access to social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook after the attack. “Access to information is vital in times of emergency. Research shows that social media restrictions increase misinformation after security incidents and attacks,” said the NetBlocks founder, Alp Toker. The Turkish parliament recently passed a sweeping new law prohibiting “disinformation”, under which social media users or journalists accused of breaking it could be jailed for up to three years. The head of RTÜK, Ebubekir Şahin, warned citizens against spreading misinformation about the attack. “We are following the developments closely. Please do not rely on information from unclear sources. Let’s get information from reliable sources. Let’s not spread false information unknowingly,” he said. Turkey was hit by a string of deadly bombings between 2015 and 2017 by Islamic State and outlawed Kurdish groups. They included a suicide bombing attack on the same street on 19 March 2016, which killed five people and injured 36. Turkish police later said the bomber had links to IS. In January that year, a suicide bomber in the busy Sultanahmet district killed 13. In June, attackers armed with automatic weapons and explosives belts attacked the entrance of Istanbul’s Atatürk airport, killing 45 people other than the attackers and injuring more than 230. “Without knowing who is behind this attack, the fact that this is the first terror attack in six years brings back terrible memories of the 2015-16 period when hundreds died across Turkey,” said Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy thinktank. “I think we could see a hardening of the electorate to the right as a result,” he added, pointing towards elections due to be held in Turkey next year, if not earlier. “I think the same trend line could hold again, that whoever portrays themselves as a security candidate standing against terrorism could consolidate their base.”
