ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Attackers set off explosives and opened fire Wednesday at Turkey’s state-run aerospace and defense company TUSAS, killing five people and wounding more than a dozen, the interior minister said.
The two attackers — a man and a woman — also were killed, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
Yerlikaya said the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, is suspected of being behind the attack but cautioned that the process of identifying the assailants continued. Defense Minister Yasar Guler also pointed the finger at the PKK.
“We give these PKK scoundrels the punishment they deserve every time. But they never come to their senses,” Guler said. “We will pursue them until the last terrorist is eliminated.”
The Islamic State group and leftist extremists have also carried out past attacks in Turkey.
“I condemn this heinous terrorist attack,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a BRICS meeting in Russia.
Putin offered condolences. A U.S. Embassy statement said Washington “strongly condemns today’s terrorist attack.”
TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its UAVs have been instrumental in Turkey gaining an upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants both on its own territory and across the border in Iraq.
The attack occurred a day after the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party that’s allied with Erdogan raised the possibility that the PKK’s imprisoned leader could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands his organization.
Abdullah Ocalan’s group has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.
The country’s pro-Kurdish political party, which also condemned the attack, noted that it had occurred at a time when the possibility of a dialogue to end the conflict had emerged.
Turkish media said the assailants arrived Wednesday at an entry to the TUSAS complex in a taxi. The assailants, carrying assault weapons, detonated an explosive device next to the taxi, causing panic and allowing them to enter.
The taxi driver was among the dead, according to HaberTurk television.
An unidenfied TUSAS employee shouted: “We will work harder and produce more in defiance of the traitors” as he and other colleagues were being evacuated from the premises, according to a video aired by HaberTurk.
Security camera images, aired on television, showed a man in plainclothes carrying a backpack and holding an assault rifle.
The interior minister said security teams were dispatched as soon as the attack started at around 3:30 p.m.
Multiple gunshots were heard after security forces entered the site, the DHA news agency and other media reported. Helicopters were seen flying above the premises.
Authorities issued a temporary blackout on the coverage of the attack and went on to throttle access to social media websites.
Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said the target of the attack was Turkey’s “success in the defense industry.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the terrorist attack, saying the United Nations “stands in solidarity” with the people and government of Turkey, according to U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also denounced the attack. “Our thoughts and heartfelt condolences go out to the families of the victims,” he said on X.
___
Associated Press writer Robert Badendieck in Hamburg, Germany, contributed.
