He said Turkish security forces believed the attack had been timed as retaliation by extremists for offensives both by Kurdish militias and pro-Ankara Syrian opposition forces against IS in Syria.
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A masked man stands next to an excavator as it digs trenches in the Islamic State-held Syrian town of Jarablus, as they are pictured from the Turkish border town of Karkamis, in Gaziantep province, Turkey August 1, 2015. “Early information on who did the attack, in what organisation’s name, is unfortunately not right”, Yildirim told reporters in Ankara.
“Daesh should be completely cleansed from our borders and we are ready to do what it takes for that”, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a news conference in Ankara.
Artillery fire from inside Turkey hit IS targets and Kurdish YPG fighters in the Syrian towns of Jarablus and Manbij.
However Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says the identity of the bomber – initially thought to be a child – has not yet been established.
Most of the 54 casualties of the Gaziantep assault were kids, media reports say.
Ankara is also concerned about the growing power of USA -backed Syrian Kurdish forces, who it says are linked to Kurdish groups waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
Turkey has had one of the bloodiest years in its modern history, facing a string of attacks by Isis and Kurdish militants and an attempted coup on 15 July.
The Turkish government blamed the PKK, which has typically targeted police and the military, whereas ISIS tends to launch mass casualty attacks on soft, civilian targets. The deadliest was last October, when suicide bombers killed more than 100 people at a rally of pro-Kurdish and labor activists in Ankara.
He said authorities were still trying to determine whether it was carried out by “a child or a grown-up”.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Erdogan blamed the Islamic State.
Sixty-six people were still in hospital, 14 of them in a serious condition. He said the earlier assertion that the attacker was child was a “guess” based on witness accounts.
Simsek, interviewed on NTV television, said, “This was a barbaric attack”.
Jarabulus is the last major city ISIS holds on the Turkish border, but is fairly far from the rebel coalition’s territory.
An official with the USA -backed Syrian Democratic Forces on the Syrian side of the border claimed the fighters allegedly gathering in Turkey include “terrorists” as well as Turkish special forces operators.
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“One possible explanation is that ISIS is upset about Kurdish military victories in northern Syria because it’s the Kurdish fighters who are really leading the charge there against the ISIS fighters”, he says.
