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ISTANBUL Tue Nov 2, 2010 7:13pm GMT
(Reuters) - The suicide bomber who blew himself up on Istanbul's main square, wounding 32 people, came from Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast and belonged to a separatist rebel group, the Istanbul governor said on Tuesday.
Seven people have been arrested in connection with the attack on Sunday in central Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city and its financial centre, the state Anatolian news agency also said.
The attack was on a police point in Taksim Square and wounded 15 policemen and 17 civilians.
The bomber was identified as Vedat Acar, Anatolian cited the governor's office as saying in a statement. Acar was born in 1986 in Van province near the Iranian border, it said.
The statement did not explicitly say to which organisation Acar belonged, but described it as a "separatist terrorist organisation," a term often used by Turkish officials to describe the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"It has been established that Acar joined the separatist terrorist organisation in 2004," Anatolian said.
A photograph of the dead bomber was handed out by police on Monday.
The PKK on Monday denied any link with the bombing in Istanbul. It declared it was extending a 2-1/2 month cease-fire on Monday until a general election expected in June 2011.
No organisation has claimed responsibility. Istanbul has been targeted in the past by Kurdish militants and al Qaeda, as well as far-left radicals.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 in a campaign to carve out an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey, and more than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the conflict.
The PKK has since scaled back its demands to greater cultural and political freedom for Turkey's 14 million Kurds.
Some observers have said that groups connected with the PKK may have been behind the attack, although the PKK leadership, based in northern Iraq, denies the movement is splintering and said none of its units were involved.
The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) is one group close to the PKK that has claimed responsibility for attacks in urban centres in the past, including the bombing of a military bus in Istanbul in June that killed five people.
(Writing by Ayla Jean Yackley, editing by Ralph Boulton)
Seven people have been arrested in connection with the attack on Sunday in central Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city and its financial centre, the state Anatolian news agency also said.
The attack was on a police point in Taksim Square and wounded 15 policemen and 17 civilians.
The bomber was identified as Vedat Acar, Anatolian cited the governor's office as saying in a statement. Acar was born in 1986 in Van province near the Iranian border, it said.
The statement did not explicitly say to which organisation Acar belonged, but described it as a "separatist terrorist organisation," a term often used by Turkish officials to describe the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"It has been established that Acar joined the separatist terrorist organisation in 2004," Anatolian said.
A photograph of the dead bomber was handed out by police on Monday.
The PKK on Monday denied any link with the bombing in Istanbul. It declared it was extending a 2-1/2 month cease-fire on Monday until a general election expected in June 2011.
No organisation has claimed responsibility. Istanbul has been targeted in the past by Kurdish militants and al Qaeda, as well as far-left radicals.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 in a campaign to carve out an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey, and more than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the conflict.
The PKK has since scaled back its demands to greater cultural and political freedom for Turkey's 14 million Kurds.
Some observers have said that groups connected with the PKK may have been behind the attack, although the PKK leadership, based in northern Iraq, denies the movement is splintering and said none of its units were involved.
The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) is one group close to the PKK that has claimed responsibility for attacks in urban centres in the past, including the bombing of a military bus in Istanbul in June that killed five people.
(Writing by Ayla Jean Yackley, editing by Ralph Boulton)
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