Hurriyet said the type of bomb used – stuffed with scraps of metal – was similar to explosives used in previous suicide bombings against pro-Kurdish gatherings blamed on ISIS in the border town of Suruc and at Ankara train station past year.
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Turkey has seen a spate of attacks in recent months and a failed military coup on July 15, which the government blames on Gulen’s movement.
The attack was the deadliest in a series of bombings in Turkey this year, and President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that the Islamic State was likely behind it. Turkey faces multiple security threats from militants at home and from Syria.
A destroyed suicide vest was found at the blast site, officials said.
The attack took place as the party was wrapping up in a mainly Kurdish neighborhood.
Jarablus, on the western bank of the Euphrates river, is the last significant town held by the militant Islamist group on Syria’s border with Turkey. I remember being underneath. The only thing I know is that my neighbour died on top of me. “They turned our wedding into a blood bath”, the bride told Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency after being released from the hospital.
She later returned to hospital after repeatedly fainting, Anadolu reported.
Funerals for numerous victims took place on Sunday with an AFP photographer saying some covered relatives’ coffins with the Kurdistan flag.
“As I can tell it’s never happened here”, he says.
Erdogan told reporters the death toll was now 51 with 94 hurt in the attack. Scores of people are being treated for injuries and 17 are listed in critical condition, according to a report by the Associated Press.
She says Germany’s thoughts are with the victims and their families, and she wished those wounded speedy recoveries.
Graves are prepared for the victims of the suicide bombing at a wedding in Gaziantep, Turkey.
Turkey’s president has blamed the Islamic State group for the attack.
“Our border must be completely cleansed from Daesh”, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in televised remarks, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group. Stating that the attackers aim to “provoke people by abusing ethnic and sectarian sensitivities”, he added, “Our country and nation have only a single message to those who attack us: you will not succeed”. Russian President Vladimir Putin called it “shockingly cruel and cynical”, and French President François Hollande denounced it as an “infamous terrorist attack”.
The United States condemned the attack, calling it a “barbaric act”. Gaziantep is about 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.
But as well as refugees and opposition activists, there have always been fears it was home to a significant jihadist presence.
Nearly 40 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Ankara in March that was claimed by a Kurdish separatist group.
Syrian rebels are preparing to launch an attack to seize a town from Islamic State (ISIS) on the border with Turkey, a senior rebel said on Sunday, in a move that would frustrate Kurdish hopes to expand in the area.
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The choice of target seems designed for maximum effect: those enjoying a moment of a celebration at a wedding party.
