A terrorist attack occurred on İstiklal Avenue in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, Turkey, on 13 November 2022 (2022-11-13),[7][8] killing 6 people and injuring 81 others.

Soon after, the Ceylanpınar incident was considered a casus belli to return to full scale confrontation, resulting in much higher monthly death tolls.

[23] As of 2022, Turkey is heading toward its 2023 Turkish general election which is expected to be a major challenge for the AKP party due to economic slowdown and very high inflation.

[24][25] In the past decade, Erdoğan and the AKP government used anti-PKK, security, martial rhetoric and external operations to raise Turkish nationalist votes before elections.

Opposition HDP elected officials are systematically probed, arrested, dismissed based on tenuous accusations, to then be replaced by pro-government AKP appointees.

[34] Since May 2022, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government have called for new external ground operations toward autonomous territories in Syria and ramped up attacks on the area.

[49][47] The Turkish police said Albashir confirmed her affiliation with PKK and YPG,[51] and that she had been trained by them as a special intelligence officer in Syria, entering Turkey through Afrin District.

[36][52] On 22 November, SDF top military official Mazloum Abdi claimed the bomber, Albashir, to be related to IS jihadists via her brothers and past husbands, some of whom were killed in battles against Kurdish forces.

[55] Jiyan Tosun, a lawyer and member of the Human Rights Association, was accused by Adem Taskaya, a politician of the far-right Victory Party, of having planted the bomb by order of the PKK.

[57] Around an hour after the explosion took place, a broadcast ban was issued by the Istanbul Criminal Court for all visual and audio news and social networking sites related to the incident.

[41] Internet speeds throughout Turkey and access to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have been significantly decreased since the attack.

[46] Istanbul's anti-terrorist office decided to suspend the rights of defense of suspects but also of Internet users who have shared "negative information" about the attack on social networks.

[59][60] On 20 November 2022, Turkish Air Force launched a series of airstrikes against Kurdish separatist positions in Northern Syria and Iraq, dubbed Operation Claw-Sword.

[15] Top SDF officials called for resuming peace talks, avoid a deadly conflict, and vowed resistance if attacked.

[42] President Erdoğan released a statement, stating, "After the treacherous attack, our members of the police went to the scene, and our wounded were sent to the surrounding hospitals.

[43][3][68] He had previously blamed the United States for the attack in Mersin in September and had said that the US had funded the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) up to $2 billion since 2019.

[68][69][70] Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, inspected the bombing site and called the population not to pay attention to misleading information on the incident.

[3] The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) announced that the Süper Lig match at Vodafone Park between Beşiktaş J.K. and Antalyaspor was postponed due to the bombing.

[73] A day after the incident the avenue was decorated with 1200 Turkish flags as a way of remembering the victims of the bombing, and most tree benches on the İstiklal were removed.

"[82] German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also said: "My thoughts are with the people who simply wanted to stroll on the Istiklal shopping street on a Sunday and have now become victims of a serious explosion."

[82] The condolences offered by the U.S. embassy in Turkey were rejected by the Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu,[83][84] who repeated the claim that the attack was carried out by the US-supported YPG.

[85] The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL argued AKP accusations linking the attack to Syrian YPG is an electoral strategy, using war mongering to distract from deepening economic context and to raise nationalist votes.