Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued an advisory on Saturday warning Iranians to avoid land travel to neighboring Turkey, after an Iranian bus was attacked by gunmen.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but Turkish authorities blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party for it.
“Based on recent movements and insecurity in eastern Turkey, the Foreign Ministry advises our citizens traveling to Turkey to avoid land routes until further notice and to use air routes,” the travel advisory reads.
The Iranian bus was hit on Friday morning in Dogubayazit district of the eastern Agri Province. The co-driver was fatally shot in the head.
“The passengers were unharmed,” Hossein Qassemi, Iran’s consul in Erzerum, Turkey, told Iranian state television on Saturday.
Mohammad Javad Atrchian, a senior official at Iran’s Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization, said travel companies have been instructed to observe security measures and, if possible, travel during daytime, Press TV reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered in late July air bombing of Islamic State group militants in Syria and also PKK fighters based in northern Iraq.
Turkey’s airstrikes followed a series of attacks inside its territory, including a devastating suicide bombing blamed on IS.
Turkey has since suffered multiple attacks.
On July 31, Iran suspended train services to Ankara after two bomb blasts on the railroad in eastern Turkey.
And a bomb exploded last month on the Iran-Turkey gas pipeline, leading to a days-long delay in the transport of gas in Agri Province.
The PKK has said a truce with Ankara that had largely held since 2013, while peace talks were ongoing, has been rendered meaningless by Turkey’s airstrikes in northern Iraq.
