Turkish authorities were on Thursday investigating a large fire that destroyed the cargo terminal at the country’s biggest airport, responsibility for which was claimed by radical Kurdish militants.
The police sealed off the badly damaged building at the Atatürk International airport, on Istanbul’s European side, and were examining tapes from security cameras, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Istanbul’s deputy governor Fikret Kasapoglu ruled out the possibility of sabotage late on Wednesday after a shadowy group calling itself the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) claimed responsibility for the fire in an e-mail sent to the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency.
He said the blaze was most probably the result of a short-circuit or goods catching fire from sparks from a welding machine, Anatolia reported.
The manager of a company providing ground services at the terminal also said on Thursday that the possibility of sabotage was unlikely.
”In a place where security is so tight … this does not seem possible,” Mujdat Yucel, the director-general of Havas, told reporters.
The blaze, which started at around 3.30pm local time on Wednesday in Terminal C, where outgoing and incoming freight is stored, was extinguished late in the evening.
Dozens of fire-fighters, aided by two fire-fighting planes, battled the blaze which sent flames and huge plumes of black smoke over the airport, causing delays in air traffic.
Three people were treated for smoke inhalation.
Turkish officials say TAK is a front for the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has fought Ankara since 1984, in attacks on civilian targets.
The group has claimed several deadly bomb attacks over the past year. The bloodiest of them killed five people, including two foreign tourists, in the Aegean resort of Kusadasi in July.
It has threatened to continue attacking tourist targets. — Sapa-AFP