Attack in Istanbul – Five other suspects arrested in Bulgaria

Less than a week after an attack in the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul, five people have been arrested in Bulgaria. They are accused of "assisting the probable perpetrator of the act of terrorism" with six dead, as the spokeswoman for the Bulgarian Attorney General, Sijka Milewa, told state radio in Sofia on Saturday. The arrests in EU state Bulgaria - a neighboring country to Turkey - brought the number of people arrested in connection with the Istanbul attack to 22, including the main suspects.

On November 13, six people were killed and more than 80 injured in an attack on a busy Istanbul shopping street. Turkey blames the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG and the banned Kurdish Workers' Party PKK. Both groups have denied this. According to the Turkish police, the main suspect is a Syrian citizen.

The spokeswoman explained that those arrested in Bulgaria had provided “rather logistical and communication assistance” after the attack. She gave no details, such as the nationality of those arrested or how they got to Bulgaria. According to the Bulgarian media, there are three suspects from Moldova and one from an Arab country. The origin of the fifth arrested person was initially not mentioned.

The PKK is classified as a "terrorist organization" by Turkey and its western allies and maintains positions in south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Their headquarters are in the northern Iraqi Kandil Mountains. Ankara regularly takes action against the PKK and has maintained military posts in northern Iraq since 2016. In the past, the Bundestag's research service had doubted whether the Turkish military's operations against the PKK abroad were compatible with international law.