Person Responsible for Istanbul Bombing Arrested, Says Interior Minister

The blast, which has been deemed a terrorist attack by Vice President Fuat Oktay, occurred in a shopping district in Beyoglu Square. It is the deadliest attack in Turkey in more than five years, killing at least six people and injuring 81 others, with two critically injured.

A suspect has been arrested in connection to the Istanbul bombing, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Monday. It was then reported by AFP that Soylu had accused the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) of being responsible for the bomb which killed at least six people and injured 81 others in front of a clothing store in Istiklal Avenue.

"According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organization is responsible," Soylu added, announcing the arrest of a suspect accused of planting the bomb. He did not address the earlier statement made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Oktay that the person responsible for the bombing was a woman.

"We believe that it is a terrorist act carried out by an attacker, whom we consider to be a woman, exploding the bomb," Oktay had said earlier on Sunday.

"A woman had been sitting on one of the benches for more than 40 minutes and then she got up," said Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag to A Haber, adding that Turkish officials are now investigating the woman from the CCTV footage. "One or two minutes later, an explosion occurred."

“There are two possibilities. Either that bag or plastic bag has a mechanism in it, it explodes on its own or someone detonates it from afar. All of these are currently under investigation," Bozdag added.

The PKK is a rebel group that has Marxist-Leninist roots, and was formed in the late 1970s before launching an armed conflict against the Turkish government in 1984. The PKK, who seek to increase autonomy and other rights for Kurds within Turkey, is recognized as a terrorist group by the United States, Turkey, and the European Union.

More than 40,000 people have died since the Kurdish-Conflict first began. On Sunday evening Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca Tweeted that 39 people injured in the attack had been treated and discharged from local hospitals.

“Of the 42 patients that remain hospitalized, five are still in the intensive care unit, two of them are in serious condition. We are doing our best to ensure that the injured people recover as soon as possible,” Koca added.

“It went very quickly from a very peaceful Sunday with a very crowded street full of tourists to being what looked like the aftermath of a war zone,” said an eyewitness of Sunday's attack.