UK Foreign Office Issues New Travel Advisory After Fatal Bombing Attack In Turkey

The UK Foreign Office has warned holidaymakers heading to Turkey after a bombing attack took place in the country.

Turkey is one of the popular destinations among British travellers and thousands of people from the UK visit it every year. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is now urging its people to ensure they stay safe in case they travel to Turkey in the coming days.

The incident took place outside Turkey's Interior Ministry building in Ankara on Sunday, where at least one person was killed and two others were injured in a bombing attack.

"An explosion occurred in the Kizilay district of Ankara on the morning of 1 October. The Turkish police have announced that no civilians were affected and the incident has been contained. We advise all British Nationals in the area to follow the advice of Turkish authorities," FCDO wrote in its latest advisory.

The attackers arrived in a light commercial vehicle in front of the building's entrance at about 9:30 AM local time. While a suicide bomber blew off an explosive device in the heart of Ankara on Sunday, a second assailant was killed in a shootout with police, Turkey's interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said. The attack took place just hours before parliament was set to reopen after its three-month summer break with an address by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As per various news reports, investigators found four different types of guns, three hand grenades, one rocket launcher and C-4 explosives at the scene. Two police officers were slightly injured during the attack near an entrance to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, Yerlikaya wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Meanwhile, the PKK, a Kurdish militant group classified as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and Europe, issued a statement earlier claiming responsibility for the bomb. The group said the attack was "carried out according to plan and without any obstacles."

Just hours after the fatal explosion in Ankara, Turkey destroyed around 20 PKK targets in northern Iraq, according to a statement released by the country's National Defence Ministry. As per news reports, Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes in the Metina, Hakurk, Kandil and Gara regions at 9 p.m. local time, destroying caves, bunkers, shelters and warehouses used by the PKK.

Terror attacks in Turkey were unfortunately common in the mid to late 2010s, when the insecurity from war-torn Syria crept north above the two countries' shared border. In 2016, Ankara was attacked twice by Kurdish assailants, one of which targeted military personnel on a bus and another at a bus stop.

In 2015, twin bombings took place near Ankara's main train station, targeting a peace rally that killed nearly 100 people.