Turkey

Police searching for clues behind Istanbul bomb attacks

Police searching for clues behind Istanbul bomb attacks Ankara - Police experts on Monday were searching for clues as to who was behind a bomb attack in Istanbul Sunday night that left 16 people dead and 154 injured, the Anadolu news agency reported.

A first small bomb which had been placed in a rubbish bin on a crowded pedestrian street in the suburb of Gungoren on the European side of Istanbul exploded at around 9:45 pm (1645 GMT) and was followed by a much larger blast around 10 to 12 minutes later and around 50 metres down the street, Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler told reporters at the scene of the blast.

Germany condemns Istanbul bombs as "blind act of terrorism"

Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday condemned the double bomb blasts that hit a crowded street in Istanbul as "a blind act of terrorism."

Bomb blasts kill at least 11 in Istanbul

Turkish warplanes strike Kurdish separatists in Iraq

Ankara - Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets inside northern Iraq Wednesday night, the Turkish General Staff announced on Thursday.

In a short statement on its official website, the General Staff said Turkish Air Force planes successfully hit 13 suspected Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) targets inside northern Iraq. The statement said that special care was taken not to hit civilian properties.

No information on what kind of targets were hit nor their locations inside Iraq was given in the statement.

Case closed on mass fire deaths that outraged Turkey

Ludwigshafen, Germany  - German prosecutors closed the file Wednesday on a building fire that killed nine Turkish Alawite people in Germany, saying they were convinced it had been an accident.

Many Turkish people have expressed a feeling that the February 3 fire may have been a cleverly disguised racist attack.

But prosecutors said they had "almost certainly" ruled out arson. The fire had begun under the staircase of the multistoreyed apartment block in the factory town of Ludwigshafen, south of Frankfurt.

No technical defect was found in the building, so the fire must have been caused by some sort of "negligent behaviour."

German hostages returning home from Turkey

Roj TVAnkara - Three German climbers who were held hostage for 12 days after being abducted by Kurdish rebels in eastern Turkey arrived in the capital Ankara Monday ahead of a flight home to Germany, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Lars Holger Renne, 33, Martin Georg S., 47, and Helmut Johann H., 65, all from Bavaria, were abducted on July 8 by five Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas who raided a 3,200-metre camp on Mount Ararat.

The three were released on Sunday and after spending the night at a police guest house in Agri, the mountaineers flew to Ankara from the eastern city of Erzurum on Monday morning.

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