BEIRUT,— The head of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) on Thursday denied Turkish allegations that the group was involved in a bombing in Ankara that killed 28 Turkish soldiers.

“We deny any involvement in this attack,” Salih Muslim told AFP, after Turkey’s prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused his party’s armed wing of carrying out the attack in coordination with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an outlawed Kurdish group in Turkey.

Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara that the bombing was carried out by a Syrian national named Salih Necar, adding that nine people had been detained in connection with the attack.

“We have never heard of this person Salih Necar,” said Muslim.

“These accusations are clearly related to Turkish attempts to intervene in Syria,” he added.

The Wednesday night bombing targeted military vehicles in the Turkish capital.

It comes as Turkey shells Kurdish militants in Syrian Kurdistan who have seized territory in recent days from rebel groups backed by Ankara in Aleppo province.

Turkey fears the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria — similar to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq — would spur the separatist ambitions of Turkey’s own Kurds.

Ankara considers Muslim’s PYD party and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) of Syrian Kurdistan, to be affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

The powerful Kurdish People’s Protection Units YPG forces which the U.S. and Russia consider an ally in the fight against IS, is the most effective group fighting Islamic State (IS) in Syria, as the Kurdish militia has seized swathes of Syria from IS.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday vowed Turkey would not allow the creation of a Kurdish stronghold in Syrian Kurdistan, saying there was no question of Turkish forces stopping their bombardment of Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, AFP | Ekurd.net

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