Turkish police detain dozens during raids after suicide bomb attack in Ankara

Police have made at least 67 arrests across Turkey during raids targeting people with alleged links to Kurdish militants days after a suicide bomb attack in Ankara.

Interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said police carried out raids in 16 Turkish provinces, detaining 55 people suspected of being part of the “intelligence structure” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

At least 12 other suspected PKK members were rounded up in a separate operation in five provinces, Mr Yerlikaya wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The PKK has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is considered a terror organisation by the United States and the European Union. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance to the Interior Ministry hours before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was set to address the Tirkish parliament as it returned from its summer recess. A second would-be bomber was killed in a shootout with police.

Two police officers were slightly wounded in the attack. The suspects arrived at the scene inside a vehicle they seized from a veterinarian in the central Turkish city of Kayseri after shooting him in the head, officials said.

The PKK claimed responsibility for the attack, according to a news website close to the group, while Turkish authorities identified one of the assailants as a PKK militant.

Hours later, Turkey’s Air Force carried out air strikes on suspected PKK sites in northern Iraq, where the group’s leadership is based. The Defence Ministry said a large number of PKK militants were “neutralised” in the strikes.

Mr Yerlikaya did not clarify whether the people rounded up on Tuesday were suspected of direct involvement in Sunday’s attack.