A bombing in Ankara moves Turkey closer to a fight with Syria—and Russia

A DEADLY car bomb in Ankara on February 17th just a few hundred metres from Turkey’s parliament has fanned the flames of the war that Turkish troops are fighting against Kurdish insurgents in the country’s south-east. It also threatens to pull Turkey yet deeper into the chaos in Syria and to sour its relations with America. Most worryingly, it has brought Turkey one step closer to a direct confrontation with Russia.

On Thursday, Turkish officials identified the man who detonated a car packed with explosives next to a military bus in the heart of the country’s capital, killing 27 military personnel and one civilian, as a member of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia. “A direct link between the attack and the YPG has been established,” said Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister. He claimed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish group that has fought Turkey’s government for decades, provided logistical support for the attack.

The YPG has no history of attacks inside Turkey. It denied any role in the bombing, and said the government was blaming it as a convenient excuse...Continue reading

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