EU report accuses Turkey of commissioning ISIS implementing bloody attack in Ankara
QAMISLI, Syria (North Press) – On Tuesday, a European report accused the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan of commissioning the Islamic State (ISIS) to implement an explosion through two suicide bombers during a demonstration in the Turkish capital, Ankara in 2015.
A secret report by the European Union’s “intelligence unit” accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of assigning ISIS to carry out the 2015 bloody explosion in Ankara, Turkish media outlets reported.
On October 10, 2015, two persons committed a suicide during a demonstration in front of the railway station in a neighborhood of the capital, Ankara.
As a result of the suicide attack, 103 persons were killed in an event which is considered the worst terrorist attack in Turkey’s contemporary history.
The two attacks took place before the early parliamentary elections held on November 1 of the same year. The Turkish government held ISIS responsible for the attacks.
However, ISIS did not claim responsibility for the attacks raising tension between the government and the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which considered the attack directed against it.
The HDP called for a peaceful demonstration with the participation of many civil society organizations in order to end tension in the country.
The authorities charged 36 suspected ISIS members, some of whom were tried in absentia, and a Turkish court sentenced nine defendants to life imprisonment in August 2018.
Testimonies made during the trial, which began in 2016, shed light on shortcomings of border security and intelligence that lawyers said “allowed areas of Turkey to become bases for militants.”
Turkish media outlets said, the report by European Union intelligence on October 13, 2015 entitles “shelling of Ankara” talks about an attack that was carried out as a result of assigning the terrorist organization ISIS by AKP.
The report, which consists of three pages, presents in details, the political environment and circumstances during which the attack was carried out, they added.
The most important part of the report was entitled “evaluation” which linked Ankara incident with the ISIS attack, which targeted demonstrators from the Socialist Party of the Oppressed, in the town of Suruç in Şanlıurfa, southeastern Turkey, on July 20, 2015, killing 33 people and wounding 109 others, according to the Turkish outlets.
They pointed out that there are similarities between the attacks of Suruç and those of Ankara where the police presence was insufficient.
Socialist Party of the Oppressed was presented in the two demonstrations. The report added that “it is most likely that the responsibility for the attacks on a gathering in Ankara along with Kurdish peace activists lies on ISIS, but the approaching date of the general elections at the time raised the suspicions of opposition parties that forces supporting the harsh government policies led by Erdogan may be involved in the attack.”
The report indicates, “The method or form of the attack (assigning suicide bombers) refer to ISIS; However, circumstances such as the lack of inspection of buses transferring protesters and the almost complete absence of police at a mass demonstration, “gives a reasonable cause to believe that the AKP government deployed militants of ISIS specifically in this case.”
On October 10, many Turkish cities witnessed different events recalling the sixth anniversary of Ankara’s attack, but the police fired tear gas canisters against participants, and arrested a number of them in Ankara.
Authorities only allows victim families and some representatives of the civil society organizations to gather in front of the railway station where the attack took place.