Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the IS group needed to be completely pushed out of the border zone inside Syria, as activists said Ankara-backed rebels were preparing an offensive against the group.
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“Sri Lanka condemns the violence unleashed by terrorists on a wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey”.
Turkey seeks to “cleanse” the country’s Syrian border area of ISIS militants after a wedding bombing that killed at least 51 people.
The deadly attack also came amid struggles between the government and Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, and as the country is still reeling from the aftermath of last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on USA -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.
The president said the Islamic State group was the “likely perpetrator” of the bomb attack, the deadliest in 2016, which targeted a celebration attended by many Kurds.
Twenty-nine victims of the attack, which took place on Sunday, were under the age of 18, reports said, with one official saying 22 were under the age of 14.
The bombing was carried out by a child aged 12 to 14 on Saturday, possibly under the direction of the Islamic State, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
“Our border must be completely cleansed from Daesh”, he said in televised remarks, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group. Turkey is also concerned that attempts by Syrian Kurds to extend their control along the common border could add momentum to an insurgency by Kurds on its own territory.
Thirteen of those killed were women, Turkish media said. He lost five young cousins in the attack.
Hurriyet newspaper said the type of bomb, which contained scraps of metal, was similar to those used in previous attacks on pro-Kurdish gatherings.
Kurdish fighters, backed by the US-led coalition, have been at the forefront of the fight against IS in Syria.
“I can not recount what I saw”, he told Anadolu Agency.
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Prosecutors said a search was also under way for two people believed to have accompanied the suspected attacker to the wedding party but who left before the blast.
