The official said the toll of 51 dead did not include the bomber.
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On Monday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, speaking to reporters in the capital of Ankara, said Turkey does not know who was behind the attack.
The two mortar shells, which hit the town of Karkamis but did not cause casualties, were apparently fired during clashes between Syrian rebels and Islamic State militants in northern Syria, state-run Anadolu Agency said. Historically, the vast, vast majority of ISIS fighters have entered Syria by way of Turkey, but Turkish officials have claimed to slow that flow.
The recent Turkish airstrikes targeted the Daesh-held northern Syrian border town of Jarablus, with a land offensive of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels expected to follow.
The deadly attack also came amid ongoing struggles between the government and Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, and as the country was still reeling from the aftermath of last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on a US -based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, and his followers.
Mevlut Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey would provide every kind of support needed to “cleanse” Turkey’s border with Syria of the extremists.
Jarablus is a vital supply line and the last border point that directly connects Isis fighters with Turkey and the outside world, and separates Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria.
The statement Sunday added that Vice President Joe Biden will visit Ankara Wednesday to reaffirm the US commitment to work together with Turkey against the “scourge of terrorism”. Gaziantep province Gov. Ali Yerlikaya said the deadly blast, during a wedding near the border with Syria, was a terror attack. The SDF declared its full support for the council. The Jarablus Military Council later blamed the killing of Mr Jader on Turkish security agents. He noted that the latest terrorist attack in Turkey came after Erdogan’s comments that Daesh does not represent Islam. One of them exploded in the garden of a house, but no one was hurt. Officials said a destroyed suicide vest was found at the scene of what was the deadliest in a series of bombings in Turkey this year.
“The security forces are focusing on it and trying to find clues related to it”, the prime minister said.
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Kurdish militia played a central role in driving the group from the Syrian city of Manbij this month, cutting a main supply route from the Turkish border to its heartland in Raqqa. For five years fighting has raged in Syria – a globally resonant nightmare kept going in part by the insistence of Bashar Assad¿s opponents that he must go even though they were failing to dislodge him from power.
