UPDATE: One person has been arrested in connection with the Istanbul blast, Turkey has said. The Turkish Interior Ministry had earlier said it has identified the person who is suspected of having placed the bomb.
At least six people were killed and 81 were wounded in the blast at a crowded shopping street in the heart of Istanbul on Sunday. Turkey's Vice President Fuat Oktay said the incident was a terror attack and that the person who planted the bomb was a woman. "We consider it to be a terrorist act as a result of a female attacker detonating the bomb," Oktay said.
"A woman sits on one of the benches there for more than 40 minutes, then gets up. An explosion occurs 1-2 minutes after she leaves. There are two possibilities: Either that bag had a mechanism in it and it exploded on its own, or someone detonated it from afar," Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said.
Original Story: At least one person died and several people were injured in an explosion in the heart of Turkey's largest city, Istanbul.
The blast took place at the centre of a busy street in Istanbul. The local governor said at least one person died in the blast.
The death toll could go up as the authorities confirmed that there have been casualties.
The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, said the blast happened in the iconic Istiklal thoroughfare in Istanbul.
"It is essential to assist our police and ealth teams regarding the explosion on Istiklal Street, and to avoid posts that may cause fear and panic," Imamoglu wrote on Twitter, DW reported.
Videos circulating on social media showed the aftermath of the blast and people lying on the ground.
The explosion happened around 4:00 pm local time.
Suicide Bombing?
The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. However, Al Jazeera TV reported that the blast was possibly a terror attack carried out by a suicide bomber. "There are strong suspicions that this was a suicide bomb, but we don't have any official statement yet [on that]," Al Jazeera's Sinem Koseoglu reported from Istanbul.
The Islamic State militants had carried out a string of terror attacks in Turkey between 2015 and 2017. Outfits linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have also been blamed for terror attacks.
