Epress.am News from Armenia
A police officer was shot dead and two others injured by unidentified assailants on Wednesday in the northern Turkish province of Kastamonu, where Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had been speaking earlier in the day, reports Today’s Zaman.
Erdoğan, who addressed his supporters in Kastamonu as part of election campaigning, left Kastamonu for Amasya in a helicopter briefly before the attack took place.
Sources from the Prime Minister’s office told the CNN Türk TV channel that one police officer had been killed and two others injured during a brief firefight between an armed group and police officers.
One police cruiser was also set ablaze. Special security teams were dispatched to the scene and police cordoned off the area.
Many ambulances were sent to the area, the broadcaster said. No further details were immediately available.
According to the NTV report a grenade was thrown at the police vehicle and gunmen opened fire as it burst into flames.
An eye witness told NTV television that the police vehicle, escorting a bus carrying journalists, turned into a “ball of fire” after an explosion. Reports said the vehicle was hit by a grenade, but the governor’s office said the car’s gasoline trunk exploded as a result of intense gunfire on a narrow road on Mt. Ilgaz.
Addressing a rally later in Amasya, Erdoğan appeared to blame separatist militants for the attack.
“Those dark minds, these terrorists, these separatists are only able to do this, those who understand there is nothing they can do through the ballot box,” Erdoğan said.
The prime minister said his party will not allow the division of Turkey and that it is doing everything it can to avert a confrontation among Turkey’s population of 74 million.
Observers say Erdoğan’s comments implied that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had orchestrated the attack.
Kastamonu province, on the Black Sea, is not known as a scene of PKK violence.