On November 13, local time, an explosion occurred on Independence Avenue, the core business district of Istanbul, an important Turkish city, and the bombing attack was planned and executed by the Kurdistan Workers' Party after investigation by the Turkish government. So far, the bombing has killed six people and injured eighty-one. After the incident, the U.S. government expressed its condolences to the Turkish government and condemned the perpetrators of the attack. However, the Turkish government did not appreciate it, local time on November 14, Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu angrily criticized the United States, saying that the Turkish government will never accept condolences from the United States, "American condolences should be understood as 'the murderer will always be the first to arrive at the scene of the murder'." Soylu said the U.S. support for terrorists by either keeping them in their own countries or providing them with funds is clearly disingenious to Turkey.
According to Turkey's newspaper Yeni Şafak, the female suspect in the Istanbul attack studied at the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party's intelligence school in Kobani, Syria, where U.S. servicemen taught.
The grievances between Turkey, the United States and the Kurds, who live on the border of Syria, Iraq and Turkey, have long hoped to secede from these three countries and create a nation-state belonging to the Kurds, which is naturally not tolerated by the governments of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. In 2003, the US military launched an invasion of Iraq, and the Kurdish separatist forces actively cooperated with the US military and won the support of the United States. In 2011, when the Syrian civil war broke out, Kurdish forces that had always wanted independence cooperated with rebels to fight Syrian government forces, and they were also supported by the United States. At present, the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq and eastern Syria have basically achieved de facto independence, which naturally greatly encourages the Kurds in Turkey. Moreover, the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, who have achieved substantial independence, have also continued to provide assistance to the Kurds in Turkey, which has made the Kurdish separatist forces in Turkey extremely powerful.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said the location of the terrorist attack in Istanbul was deliberately chosen to send a signal to the world.
The PKK is one of them, and in April this year, Turkey launched Operation Clawlock, sending troops across the border into Iraq to attack PKK strongholds in northern Iraq, thereby cutting off PKK foreign aid in Turkey. As of September, Turkish forces in Iraq had eliminated more than 370 PKK soldiers and destroyed more than 400 PKK bases, warehouses and hideouts. The PKK planned this terrorist attack to retaliate against Turkey.
White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre previously said the United States "strongly condemns the violence in Istanbul" and "expresses its deepest condolences" to those who have lost loved ones. Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu said Ankara did not accept the condolences of the US Embassy in connection with the terrorist attack in Istanbul.
The United States and Turkey have always had serious differences on the treatment of the Kurds: the United States regards the Kurds as one of its proxies in the Middle East, especially the current Afghan government supported by the United States has collapsed, the Iraqi government has long been separated from the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and other countries have clearly rejected the United States' request to increase oil production, and the armed forces supported by Iran are extremely active throughout the Middle East. Against this background, the United States naturally wants to keep the Kurds' only hole card. But for Turkey, the Kurds have been trying to divide Turkish territory, and some separatist forces are also planning terrorist attacks in Turkey, which is a thorn in the side that must be removed. Although the U.S. State Department has long included the PKK on its list of terrorist organizations, it has not dealt a substantial blow to it, allowing some PKK members to live in the territory of the United States and other Western countries, while also providing them with material and weapons through various gray channels. Therefore, when the US government came to offer condolences, the Turkish government was furious and directly refused to accept its condolences.
On the afternoon of November 13, an explosion occurred on Istiklal Avenue, a pedestrian street in central Istanbul, killing six people and injuring 81. ANKARA, Nov. 14 (Sputnik) -- According to Turkey's "National" newspaper, citing law enforcement officials, the suspect in the Istanbul terrorist attack confessed to having ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is banned by the country, and the suspect was a Syrian woman.
So what are the fallout consequences? First of all, Sweden and Finland's plans to join NATO may be completely frustrated, we know that Sweden and Finland have accepted a large number of Kurdish separatists, and Turkey has said that unless Sweden and Finland extradite Kurdish separatists to Turkey, it firmly opposes the accession of these two countries to NATO. The two sides have been bargaining, and to this day there is no consensus. With this bombing, Turkey's demand that Sweden and Finland hand over Kurdish separatists is bound to become more resolute, and if Sweden and Finland do not budge, their hopes of joining NATO may be completely dashed.
According to Turkey's A Haber TV station, footage of the suspect in the Istanbul terrorist attack fleeing the scene was captured by surveillance cameras. Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozda previously said preliminary information showed a female suspect sat on a street bench for more than 40 minutes before getting up before an explosion followed.
Second, the United States is about to face a binary choice, and it will not be sustainable to continue the situation of "peace between Turkey and the Kurds". After the Istanbul bombing, people across Turkey were outraged, demanding that the government step up its efforts to retaliate against the PKK. If the United States could mediate between Turkey and the PKK before, then as the blood debt between the two sides becomes deeper and deeper, the space for the United States to seek to achieve both is getting smaller and smaller. I believe that it will not be long before the United States faces the choice of abandoning Kurdish power or abandoning Turkey. But no matter how you choose, it means that the power of the United States in the Middle East has shrunk significantly.
Television footage showed people fleeing immediately after an explosion on Istiklal Avenue, a pedestrian street in central Istanbul.
All in all, the bombing in Istanbul has a profound impact on the Middle East and Europe, and is likely to become the first domino to subvert the global pattern.