Shots were fired near the headquarters of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) İstanbul branch on Thursday at 4 a.m. local time, in a suspected attack under investigation by the public prosecutor, CHP İstanbul branch chairperson Canan Kaftancıoğlu has tweeted.
According to the İstanbul Governor’s Office, the shots were fired into the air from a car traveling on the TEM Highway in the direction of Edirne. According to a report by Deutsche Welle’s Turkish edition (DW Türkçe), police officers on duty and private security guards in the vicinity reported hearing five or six gunshots. Initial investigations revealed no bullet impacts on the CHP building. Two 9mm casings were found on the roadside, and security camera footage showed a vehicle speeding along the highway from which the shots were fired.
Kaftancıoğlu announced that the public prosecutor’s investigation into the incident is ongoing and that developments would be shared with the public. She said that while no specific threat had been received, a recent attack on the İYİ (Good) Party made the possibility of such attacks less surprising.
Other political figures, including CHP group deputy chairman Özgür Özel, Homeland Party Chairman Muharrem İnce and Labor Party Chairman Ercüment Akdeniz, condemned the attack and expressed support for the CHP.
In a separate incident on Thursday, the election office of the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party (YSP) in İstanbul’s Bahçelievler district was attacked. Unidentified individuals vandalized the office in the morning hours when no one was present. Flags hanging outside and stickers on the walls were removed, and the walls and floors were covered with offensive writing and insults.
The YSP Bahçelievler district branch announced that they would file a criminal complaint with the prosecutor’s office regarding the attack.
The attack on the CHP İstanbul branch follows a similar incident at the İYİ Party provincial headquarters in Zeytinburnu last Friday, where bullets hit the building but caused no casualties.