ANKARA: Five people were killed and 22 others wounded in an attack on a top Turkish defence firm near Ankara that the government said was “very likely” carried out by Kurdish militants.

“The way in which this action was carried out is very probably linked to the PKK,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said, referring to the Kurdish militant group which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

He said efforts to identify the perpetrators were ongoing.

Shortly after 3:30 pm, a huge explosion rocked the headquarters of state-run Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Ankara.

It sent clouds of smoke into the air as the sound of gunfire rang out, Turkish media reported in an incident quickly denounced by Yerlikaya as a “terror attack”.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was in Russia for talks with Vladimir Putin, denounced it as a “heinous” attack on Turkey’s defence industry “targeting the survival of our country,” he said on X.