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Turkey Must Conduct ‘Prompt, Impartial’ Probe of Latest Terror Attack

A Kurdish militant group, which is an offshoot of the PKK, claimed responsibility. Around 125 people were wounded, with 71 people hospitalised.

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Mr Davutoglu added that authorities had detained 11 people directly connected to the suicide bombing near a line of bus stops that killed 37 people.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack in a written statement, adding that “Turkey has become a target of terror attacks due to the instabilities in the region”.

While the identities of the perpetrators remain unclear, Turkey’s interior minister said earlier that “at least one” of the 37 bodies belonged to the attacker(s).

The blast on Sunday occurred less than a mile from the site of a February 17 vehicle bombing that targeted a bus full of Turkish soldiers, killing 28 of them.

Turkey has in recent months waged an all-out assault on the PKK, which launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, fighting for greater autonomy and rights for the country’s largest ethnic minority.

Four people have been arrested in connection with a suicide attack in Ankara which Turkish officials says was carried out by a male and female bomber.

Hours after the attack, Turkish fighter bombers hit arms depots and PKK shelters in mountainous northern Iraq, the army said, quoted by the state-run Anatolia news agency.

The government said Syrian Kurdish militants were also involved in that attack, near the military headquarters, parliament and other key government institutions.

“If Erdogan defeats us, then he can defeat everyone in Turkey who wants democracy, so our main aim now is the fall of Erdogan, ” Bayik said, noting, “Our fight is now existential: to be or not to be”.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that his government has gathered “almost certain” proof that the PKK was behind the bombing. Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said three more people died overnight from wounds suffered in the attack. Anadolu said an operation in Nusaybin, on the border with Syria, began Monday, while tanks were deployed for another operation in the town of Yuksekova, near the border with Iraq.

The PKK has its bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, from where it controls operations across the frontier in Turkey.

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Members of the Cermik family attend a funeral procession for three members of their family killed in Sunday’s explosion in Ankara, Turkey, Monday, March 14, 2016. Nineteen of the injured were said to be in a serious condition.

Emergency workers work at the explosion site in Ankara Turkey