Ankara police chief fired over suicide blasts
Print Edition
The Turkish interior ministry yesterday fired Ankara’s top police chief and two others as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted security shortcomings may have led to a double suicide bombing in the capital that killed at least 97 people.
There has been growing anger against Erdogan and the government for alleged security lapses over the worst attack in modern Turkey’s history last Saturday where two suicide bombers blew themselves in a crowd of peace activists.
Announcing the first dismissals since the blasts, the interior ministry said the chief of Ankara police Kadri Kartal as well the head of the city’s police intelligence and security departments had been sacked.
It said they had been removed on the suggestion of investigators “to allow for a healthy investigation” into the atrocity.
In his first public remarks over the bombings, Erdogan admitted there were security shortcomings but said their magnitude would be made clear only later. “There must undoubtedly be a mistake, a shortcoming in some place. Of what dimension? This will emerge after examinations,” he told reporters late on Tuesday.
He said that he ordered the State Supervisory Council, an inspection body attached to the Turkish presidency, to undertake a special investigation “to handle (the attack) from a different perspective”.
Its probe will be held in parallel with the regular police and judicial investigation. The DDK has in the past probed state-sensitive issues like the death in 1993 of former President Turgut Ozal.
An information ministry official said that two people with alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party had been detained on suspicion of having prior knowledge of the attack and sharing the information nine hours prior to the attack on Twitter.
Erdogan yesterday made his first trip to the attack site outside Ankara’s main railway station, laying flowers for the victims alongside visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
The attack targeted thousands of people gathering for a peace rally of union, leftist and Kurdish activists criticizing the government’s current offensive against Kurdish militants.
The government has said the Islamic State is the prime suspect behind the attack, which also injured more than 500.
Without giving further details, Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey had received intelligence indicating that the Ankara attack may be linked to Syria, where IS jihadists have captured swathes of territory.
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