At least 48 people have been wounded in Turkey in a vehicle bomb explosion targeting the provincial offices of the ruling AK Party in the country’s eastern city of Van.
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A statement by the governor’s office said 48 people were injured, including 46 civilians and two police officers, when the explosion hit the center of city near the AKP’s offices and the governor’s building.
Anadolu said Abdullah Ocalan’s message was relayed Monday by his brother Mehmet Ocalan, who was allowed to visit the PKK leader at his island prison south of Istanbul the day before the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha.
A security member guarding the site of a auto bomb attack in the city centre of Van, eastern Turkey, Monday, Sept. 12, 2016.
The claim of responsibility was posted on a website close to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group which has been used to claim previous attacks in Turkey.
Protests erupted in southeastern Turkey after the government sacked about two dozen elected mayors from Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday (11 September) and replaced them with new ones. Windows of nearby houses and storefronts were also shattered in the blast.
The 24 municipalities had been run by the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest in parliament, which denies direct links to the militants.
The explosion caused damage over a wide area in a central district of a city that’s been targeted many times by the PKK, a separatist group branded a terrorist organisation by Ankara and the EU.
A wounded woman is rushed from the scene of a bombing in Turkey.
They are calling President Tayyip Erdogan’s administration’s widespread move a violation of voters and global law, and its own coup against the Turkish Parliament.
The government has also stepped up its military campaign in the restive southeast to eradicate PKK militants, who have launched nearly daily attacks since the rupture of a fragile ceasefire a year ago.
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Turkey’s military said Sunday that its warplanes killed 20 Islamic State group fighters in an attack on targets in northern Syria, while Turkey’s president renewed a pledge to destroy the group.
