Ankara — A huge explosion outside the headquarters of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) near Ankara left a number of people “dead and injured,” Turkey’s interior minister said Wednesday, describing it as a “terrorist attack.”
“A terrorist attack was carried out against the Turkish Aerospace Industries… Unfortunately, we have martyrs and injured people,” Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X after local media reported a blast and shooting outside the site some 25 miles outside Ankara.
TAI is owned by Turkey’s government and military.
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Video from the scene broadcast by local media showed huge clouds of smoke and a large fire raging at the site in Kahramankazan, a small town about 25 miles north of Ankara.
Haberturk TV said there was an ongoing “hostage situation,” without giving further details, while the private NTV television spoke of gunshots after an initial explosion at about 4 p.m. local time (8 a.m. Eastern).
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
The blast occurred as a major trade fair for the defense and aerospace industries was taking place in Istanbul, which was visited this week by Ukraine’s top diplomat.
Turkey’s defence sector, which is widely known for its Bayraktar drones, accounts for nearly 80 percent of the nation’s export revenues with revenues expected to top 10.2 billion dollars in 2023.
