Turkey's interior minister on Wednesday pointed the finger at the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the government, over a deadly attack on a defense firm near the capital Ankara.
"The identification process and the search for fingerprints are continuing and we will say which terrorist organisation was behind the attack... The way in which this action was carried out is very probably linked to the PKK," said Ali Yerlikaya, who raised the death toll to five with 22 injured.
"A terrorist attack was carried out against the Turkish Aerospace Industries... Unfortunately, we have martyrs and injured people," Yerlikaya wrote on X, using a term often used for the deaths of soldiers or police.
Footage from the scene broadcast by local media initially showed huge clouds of smoke and a large fire raging at the site in Kahramankazan, a small town some 40 kilometres (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 the blast, which took place around 4:00 PM (13:00 GMT).
There was no immediate claim 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 defense sector, which is widely known for its Bayraktar drones, accounts for nearly 80 percent of the nation's export revenues, which are expected to top 10.2 billion dollars in 2023.
With AFP
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