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 Sunday's attack, tearing through a crowded transport hub a few
hundred meters (yards) from the Justice and Interior Ministries, was
the second such strike at the administrative heart of the city in
under a month.
Evidence has been obtained that one of the bombers was a female
member of the PKK who joined the militant group in 2013, the
security officials told Reuters. She was born in 1992 and from the
eastern Turkish city of Kars, they said.
Violence has spiralled in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast
since a 2-1/2 year ceasefire with the PKK collapsed in July. But the
militants, who say they are fighting for Kurdish autonomy, have
largely focused attacks on the security forces in southeastern
towns, many of which have been under curfew.
Attacks in Ankara and in Istanbul over the last year, and the
activity of Islamic State as well as Kurdish fighters, have raised
concerns among NATO allies who see Turkey's stability as vital to
the containment of violence across its borders in Syria and Iraq.
President Tayyip Erdogan is also eager to dispel any notion he is
struggling to maintain security
"With the power of our state and wisdom of our people, we will dig
up the roots of this terror network which targets our unity and
peace," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Twitter.
 Turkish warplanes bombed camps belonging to the PKK in northern Iraq
early on Monday, the army said. A round-the-clock curfew was also
imposed in the southeastern town of Sirnak in order to conduct
operations against Kurdish militants there, the provincial
governor's office said.
Turkey's government sees the unrest in its southeast as closely tied
to the war in Syria, where a Kurdish militia has seized territory
along the Turkish border as it battles Islamic State militants and
rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
The government fears those gains are stoking Kurdish separatist
ambitions at home and says Syrian Kurdish fighters share deep
ideological and operational ties with the PKK. They also complicate
relations with the United States which sees the Syrian Kurds as an
important ally in battling Islamic State.
BOMB PACKED WITH NAILS
A police source said hours after the explosion that there appeared
to have been two attackers, a man and a woman, whose severed hand
was found 300 meters from the blast site.
The explosives were the same kind as those used in a Feb. 17 attack
that killed 29 people, mostly soldiers, and the bomb had been packed
with pellets and nails to cause maximum injury and damage, the
source told Reuters.
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The government has said it expects to officially identify the
organization behind the attack later on Monday.
As part of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in
neighboring Syria and Iraq, Turkey faces multiple security threats.
Islamic State militants have been blamed for at least four bomb
attacks on Turkey since June 2015, including a suicide bombing that
killed 10 German tourists in the historic heart of Istanbul in
January. Local jihadist groups and leftist radicals have also staged
attacks in Turkey in the past.
There was little immediate reaction on financial markets, with the
lira only slightly weaker against the dollar. But analysts said the
deteriorating security situation was a concern for a country heavily
dependent on tourism.
"It is clear that Turkey's political risk profile is rising
gradually and the country is not yet safe for long-term investors,"
Atilla Yesilada of Istanbul-based consultancy Global Source Partners
said in a note to clients.
In its armed campaign in Turkey, the PKK has historically struck
directly at the security forces and says it does not target
civilians. A direct claim of responsibility for Sunday's bombing
would indicate a major tactical shift.
The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility for the
previous car bombing, just a few blocks away, on Feb. 17. TAK says
it has split from the PKK, although experts who study Kurdish
militants say the two organizations are affiliated.
(Additional reporting by Asli Kandemir in Istanbul; Writing by Daren
Butler and David Dolan; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Ralph
Boulton)
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