A SUSPECTED suicide attack has killed and injured scores of people at an outdoor wedding party in Turkey’s volatile south east. Reports said the wedding had a strong Kurdish presence. Mehmet Erdogan, a ruling party legislator from Gaziantep, said authorities believe it was most probably a suicide bombing.
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Turkish officials appeared to concede they aren’t sure who was behind the attack, with Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek saying that the PKK, ISIS, and the Gulenist movement are all attacking Turkey right now, and that the country will overcome all these strikes.
No group has yet taken credit of the attack.
His office confirmed the higher death toll roughly four hours after Saturday attacks in a mainly Kurdish neighborhood of the city, close to the Syrian border.
Photos from the scene in the Sahinbey district of Gaziantep show a packed street with several bodies covered in white sheets.
“We wish God’s mercy for those who have lost their lives in this cruel attack, and for the injured, a quick recovery”, the Gaziantep governor’s office said in its statement, according to Reuters.
Gaziantep is about 76 miles from Aleppo, the Syrian city devastated by five years of civil war and recent Russian and Syrian-state airstrikes.
Turkey faces multiple security threats from IS militants at home and across the border with neighbouring Syria, as well as from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Kurdish militant group.
“Our country and nation only have a single message to those who attack us – you will not succeed!” he added.
A group of rogue Turkish soldiers last month attempted to overthrow the government, commandeering tanks, helicopters and warplanes in an attempted putsch that killed 240 people.
Kurdish militants have twice struck in Ankara in deadly attacks, while IS suicide bombers have twice killed tourists in the center of Istanbul.
The attack comes as the country is still reeling from last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on USA -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.
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In a sign that Turkey’s position was becoming gradually more aligned with Russian Federation and Iran, he added that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could remain temporarily during a transition period.
