“The club and the players offer their condolences to Umut Bulut and his family”, the Super Lig club said.
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The U.S. condemned the Ankara attack, with State Department spokesman John Kirby saying in a statement, “We reaffirm our strong partnership with our North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey in combating the shared threat of terrorism”.
At least 37 people were killed and 125 others injured after an explosion hit Turkey’s capital city of Ankara, the media reported on Monday.
The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility for the bombing, which was just a few blocks away.
Meanwhile, the military denied a claim by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who said Moscow has information that Turkey’s military is entrenched a few hundred meters (yards) inside Syrian territory to prevent Kurdish groups from strengthening their positions. Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, said the government was “almost certain” a man and woman linked to the PKK was responsible for the atrocity. He was visiting the wounded in hospital.
Assigning responsibility for the attack could be hard, but it could stir Erdogan to take an even tougher stance toward Kurdish separatists, CNN intelligence and security analyst Robert Baer said.
Following that bombing, the Turkish military launched air strikes on Monday and struck northern Iraq’s Qandil mountain area where the PKK’s main bases are, and the military said 45 PKK insurgents were believed to have been killed.
Police also carried out raids in the southern city of Adana, detaining 38 suspected PKK rebels, while 15 others were detained in Istanbul.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared earlier this year that “Israel is in need of a country like Turkey in the region”.
A bomb-laden auto caused the explosion late Sunday night near Kizilay square, Hurriyet Daily News reported. “Our soldiers, policemen, village guards, all our security forces are resolutely struggling against terrorist organization at the risk of their lives”.
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Since a cease-fire between the government and the PKK collapsed last July, Turkish security forces have been conducting a major campaign against the group in the southeast of the country.
