The blast, close to local government offices, wounded around 50 people, including four police officers and four Iranian citizens thought to have been visiting during the Muslim Eid holiday, officials said.
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Turkey should revive a peace process to end three-decades of conflict with Kurdish militants, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan said, in comments relayed by his brother on Monday.
A auto bomb exploded Monday (12 September) outside the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) headquarters in the eastern Turkish city of Van, wounding 48 people including two police officers, local authorities said.
Trustees were appointed to oversee 28 local administrations Sunday following the suspension of mayors accused of links to the PKK or the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).
Zahir Soganda, chairman of the ruling party’s Van office, told the Anadolu agency he was aware that threats of such an attack had been made after the mayors were replaced. The government said in a statement that Turkey removed the mayors to stop local governments from aiding terrorism with public property and funds.
Van is a city about 100 km east of the border with Iran and has a mixed Kurdish and Turkish population on the shores of the lake of the same name.
The explosion occurred on the first day of Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holiday. The eastern city of Van today was hit by a vehicle bomb that injured 19.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said a fragile ceasefire in neighbouring Syria was largely holding and expressed hopes that it would become permanent.
The crackdown comes as Ankara also pushes ahead with a purge of tens of thousands of supporters of USA -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Turkey of orchestrating the attempted coup in July. Two of the injured were in critical condition.
“The Turkish Armed Forces and the International Coalition Air Forces have launched a military operation aimed at clearing the district of Jarablus of the province of Aleppo from the terrorist organisation Daesh”, it added, using an Arabic acronym for IS group.
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Several Turkish soldiers have been killed by IS rocket attacks in northern Syria this month, and Turkey blamed the death of another soldier last month on an attack by Kurdish militiamen.
