Two terrorists carried out a bomb attack in front of Turkey's Interior Ministry building in the Turkish capital Ankara ahead of the opening of parliament on Sunday, authorities said.
Two police officers suffered non life-threatening injuries in the attack, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a statement on X, previously known as Twitter.
The attackers arrived in a light commercial vehicle in front of the building's entrance at about 9:30 a.m. local time, Yerlikaya. One assailant blew himself up and the other was "neutralized."
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, a Kurdish militant group known as PKK that's designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and Europe, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had been "carried out according to plan and without any obstacles," pro-PKK newsgroup Firat News Agency reported Sunday afternoon.
A unit dubbed the 'Brigade of Immortals' explicitly targeted the opening of the parliament and the ministry building, saying it is considered "a massacre and torture center," according to a statement attributed to a wing of the PKK posted on the newsgroup's website.
"Every person should know that the members of the Brigade of Immortals could have achieved a very different result with only a small change in their timing if they had wanted to," the statement reads.
In the statement, the PKK's People's Defense Center Headquarters Command justified the attack due to what it called the "disregard of human rights, the inhuman practice and policy of isolation in Turkish and Kurdish jails, the use of chemical weapons against KPP guerrilla forces, ecocide in Kurdistan, and the oppression of the Kurdish people."
Security footage of the incident obtained by Reuters shows a vehicle slowing down on the street near the building's gated entrance.
The vehicle comes to a stop then the driver's side door slowly opens. One individual exits as a second emerges from the other side of the car. The second person approaches the entrance in a tactical stance, though it's unclear if the attacker is holding a firearm, while the first hides behind the car. The assailant in motion hurries quickly past what appears to be a guard tower. A large explosion then strikes.
After, through the smoke, the contours of what appears to be the first attacker move toward the gate before the 40-second clip ends.
The apparent guard tower in front of the entrance to the building was slightly damaged in the blast. Police have since cordoned off the area, and video from the scene from CNN affiliate CNN Turk appeared to show a bomb squad searching the area for other suspicious package.
A bomb found on the body of the neutralized terrorist was set off after the attack in a controlled explosion, one of at least two that could be heard on television footage.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said that an investigation has been launched into the incident.
"These attacks will in no way hinder Turkey's fight against terrorism," Tunc said on X. "Our fight against terrorism will continue even more determinedly."
The bombing took place just hours before lawmakers were set to return to work after the summer break at 2 p.m.
In his address to lawmakers, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Turkey would continue its fight against terrorism "until the last terrorist is eliminated domestically and abroad" following Sunday's attack.
"The vile people who took aim at the peace and security of our citizens did not reach their goal and they never will," he said.
The PKK has been waging an insurgency against Ankara for four decades.
In recent years, Turkey has carried out a steady stream of operations against the group domestically as well as cross-border operations into Syria, where a PKK-affiliated Kurdish group controls large swaths of territory.
In November 2022, Ankara blamed the PKK for a bomb attack on a central pedestrian boulevard in Istanbul which killed six and injured dozens.
Terror attacks in Turkey were tragically common in the mid to late 2010s, when the insecurity from war-torn Syria crept north above the two countries' shared border.
Ankara saw two attacks by Kurdish assailants in 2016, one which targeted military personnel on a bus and another at a bus stop.
Twin bombings in 2015 that targeted a peace rally near the capital's main train station claimed the lives of nearly 100 people.
Erdogan said Sunday's attack marked the "final flutters of terrorism" in the country in his speech to parliament.
