Ambulances have been dispatched to the scene of the blast, with private broadcaster CNN Türk reporting that there are a number of injures. The eastern city of Van today was hit by a vehicle bomb that injured 19. Van sits about 100 km (60 miles) from the border with Iran.
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Mr Erdogan said the “PKK has no chance of resistance against the power of our state”, despite an upsurge in violence that has seen hundreds of members of the security forces killed since a ceasefire ruptured in 2015.
The blast tore the front off a four-storey building.
Zahir Soganda, chairman of the ruling party’s Van office, told the Anadolu agency he was aware that threats of such an attack had been made after the mayors were replaced.
Turkey’s government replaced 28 mayors, whom the Interior Ministry accuses of terrorist ties, with trustees, sparking demonstrations and worldwide concern.
On Sept. 4, 2016, a mortar attack was launched on a police checkpoint in the Edremit district of Van Province, but there were no injuries.
Four people, including Deputy Mayor Mikayil Erdal and HDP district organisation head Asim Ozcan, were detained but released shortly after, newspaper said.
Turkey has sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Syria, in an unprecedented operation dubbed Euphrates Shield aimed at booting out ISIS Islamists and Kurdish militia from the border area.
Since the two-year peace process broke down, the Turkish government has taken a hard-line stance to the Kurdish problem, destroying several towns seized by militants and clamping down on the legal pro-Kurdish political movement in the country. The HDP, the third-largest party in parliament, decried what it said was an “administrative coup” and declared the move illegal.
The government has stepped up its military campaign in the restive southeast to eradicate PKK terrorists, who have launched nearly daily attacks since the rupture of a fragile ceasefire previous year.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended the suspension of 28 mayors, saying it was a long-overdue.
“To me, it is a step that came late”.
“You, as mayors and municipal councils, can not stand up and support terrorist organisations”.
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“You do not have such an authority”.
