According to the local governor, Fikret Dayioglu, Antalya, the most popular and largest Turkish summer resort near the Mediterranean Sea, was the scene of a deadly explosion on Sunday, which killed three foreign tourists, a Russian, a Norwegian and a Hungarian, as well as a Turkish waiter, and injured 25 others. The blast occurred at a restaurant near a waterfall in Manavgat tourist area, around 100 kilometers east of Antalya.

In an interview with Anatolia news agency, Dayioglu stated that preliminary police inquiries revealed the fact that the explosion was produced by a gas canister left near the restaurant and may be a part of a terrorist attack. Yet security forces, as well as police officers, are still investigating the incident in order to confirm this hypothesis. Manavgat Mayor Zeynel Senol told Anatolia that the explosion happened at 5.40 p.m.

Some have already pointed towards Kurdish separatists, which have been fighting for independence in Turkey since 1984 and which have organized terrorist attacks on numerous occasions, recently vowing to hit Turkish tourism industry that is basically the only financial sector that massively sustains the economy at this point.

The attack comes amid heightened fear of major terrorist assaults because it occurred ten days after a bomb placed in a trash bin near a major bus station in central Istanbul, another popular tourist attraction, wounded at least three people. Kurdish guerillas had claimed responsibility for the blast.

Photo Credits: Turkish Daily News