“We cannot say with certainty that this is mass terror, but it already smells like terror,” Turkish media quoted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying. Some analysts, in particular from the New York Times, have already predicted that a “quiet five-year period” has ended for Turkey when there were no major terrorist attacks on its territory, and the country may become dangerous for tourists shortly.
We will remind you, on Sunday at 4:20 p.m., a terrorist attack took place on the famous tourist street Istiklal in Istanbul. According to preliminary data, as a result of the explosion, 6 people died, and 81 were injured, two of them seriously. Read details at this link. According to the latest data, about 50 people have already been discharged from the hospital.
In his statement about the “smell of terror,” President Erdoğan said, in particular, that “relevant units of our state continue to work to identify those responsible for this treacherous attack. “Attempts to force Turkey and the Turkish people to surrender with the help of terrorism will not achieve their goal today and tomorrow, as it was yesterday,” the president also said.
Meanwhile, Turkish experts report on the first results of the investigation. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkey, Suleiman Soylu, announced the detention of more than 20 people who may have been involved in the terrorist attack. “According to our estimates, the order to carry out the terrorist attack came from Kobani, and the perpetrator of the attack came from Afrin,” the minister said. We are talking about the cities in the north of Syria, where Kurdish “units” banned in Turkey operate, which the authorities still consider to be the most likely perpetrators of the terrorist attack.
However, the version that in this way they are trying to “shake” the current government has also been heard. The American New York Times, mentioning that the explosion thundered where “many of the tens of millions of tourists who visit Turkey every year” spend their time, already predicted that “a relatively calm five-year period has come to an end for Turkey.” What, according to the Turkish media, “triggered the scandal.” “The explosion destroyed the tourists’ sense of peace – and it happened at a time when the Turkish industry is intensively working on recovery after the coronavirus,” experts assured.
We will remind you that five years ago, tourists were also victims of an attack – most likely it is a terrorist attack on January 12, 2016, when an explosion also occurred in the historical district of Istanbul on Sultanahmet Square. Then 12 people died and 15 were injured. Among the victims were many tourists from Germany.