A suspect in Istanbul’s Istiklal Street explosion arrested: Turkish Interior Minister
According to Turkish authorities, at least six people were killed and 82 injured in an explosion in a busy area of central Istanbul.
The explosion took place on Sunday at Bishit Square at around 4:20 PM local time.
According to the Turkish Interior Minister, a suspect has been arrested after this explosion. Suleiman Sawilo while talking to journalists said that the person who planted the bomb has been arrested by Istanbul Security Directorate Teams.
He blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party of Syria for the blast, but no group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast.
It should be noted that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party is an armed group that demands an independent Kurdish state in Turkey. The European Union and the United States have declared it a terrorist organization.
Sawilo also criticized America’s condemnation of the blast and said that “the killer was the first to arrive at the scene.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in his message that the people involved in this explosion will be brought to justice and punished, while the Vice President of Turkey said that it could possibly be a terrorist attack. What a woman did.
The BBC’s Orla Gurin, who was at the scene of the blast in Istanbul, said there was a large police presence in and around Istiqlal Street, which had cordoned off the area.
According to the representative of the BBC, ambulances and rescuers are in the area while security helicopters are hovering over the area.
An eyewitness, Camille DeNancy, told the AFP news agency that he was only 50 meters away from the blast site when he heard a loud explosion.
I saw three to four people lying face down on the ground while many people were running in the chaos. There was black smoke in that place. The sound of the explosion was so intense that I became deaf for some time.
The road where the blast took place is located near Taksim Square, a popular tourist spot in Istanbul. As it was Sunday and the weather was hot, the area was quite crowded. Photos and videos that went viral on social media in Turkey showed people lying on the ground after the explosion.
Police have cordoned off the area and the area has been completely cordoned off
In the images received, it can be seen that several ambulances and police vehicles have been dispatched to the area.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and opposition leader Imran Khan have condemned the blast in Istanbul and expressed regret for the loss of human lives.
