ISTANBUL (Reuters)  Turkey’s interior minister said Saturday that several suspects had been arrested in last week’s bombings in Istanbul that killed 17 people, and he blamed the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party for the blasts.

“Our judgment is that this merciless attack was the work of the bloody separatist terror group,” said Interior Minister Besir Atalay. He declined to say how many people had been arrested.

Officials had said they suspected that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the P.K.K. for its initials in Kurdish, was behind the attacks. The party has denied involvement.