Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu says authorities know the identity of man suspected of killing 39 people in New Year’s Day attack

The Turkish government says it has established the identity of the gunman who killed 39 people in an attack on an Istanbul nightclub in the early hours of New Year’s Day, as further arrests were made in connection with the atrocity.

The foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said in a televised interview that the attacker had been identified, though he did not provide further details. The suspect has yet to be publicly named, although police have released a grainy image.

The gunman killed a police officer and another person in order to enter the Reina nightclub, which overlooks the Bosphorus in the wealthy Ortaköy neighbourhood of Turkey’s largest city. Nearly two-thirds of those killed in the club, which is frequented by celebrities, were foreigners and many were from the Middle East. Sixty-nine people were injured.

Several people have been arrested in relation to the shooting, including at least five suspected Islamic State group militants during an operation on Wednesday in the Aegean port city of Izmir, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

The operation targeted three families who had arrived in Izmir about 20 days ago from Konya, a city in central Turkey where the gunman is thought to have been based before carrying out the nightclub attack, reports said.

Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, hailing the gunman as a “heroic soldier of the caliphate” who attacked the nightclub “where Christians were celebrating their pagan feast”.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the attack was designed to split the country. “The aim was clear – to create a fissure and polarise society,” he said in a speech at his presidential palace. “We will stand tall and keep our sangfroid.”

“No-one’s lifestyle in Turkey is under a systematic threat. We would never let this happen. In 14 years in power, we have never given this a chance.”

Erdoğan, who first came to power in 2003 as prime minister, has been accused of presiding over a creeping Islamisation in Turkey and accentuating splits in society.



Eleven of those killed were Turkish nationals and one was a Turkish-Belgian dual citizen, reports said. Seven victims were from Saudi Arabia; there were three each from Lebanon and Iraq; two each from Tunisia, India, Morocco and Jordan, and one each from Kuwait, Canada, Israel, Syria and Russia.

The German foreign ministry said two residents of Bavaria, one a Turkish national and one a dual Turkish-German citizen, had died in the attack.



It remains unclear how the attacker managed to escape from the club, which is across the street from a police station. One report suggested he had abandoned his weapon and mingled with the crowd outside, pretending to be an injured civilian.



Turkish media reports said police had established similarities with a suicide bomb and gun attack at Atatürk airport in Istanbul in June and were investigating whether the same Isis cell could have carried out both atrocities.



There were more than 30 violent acts last year in Turkey, which is a Nato member and a partner in the US-led coalition fighting Isis in Syria and Iraq. There were a number of bombings, including three in Istanbul that authorities blamed on Isis, a failed coup attempt in July and renewed conflict with Kurdish rebels in the south-east.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report