Suicide bombers also killed at least 95 people in October past year when they attacked a rally of pro-Kurdish and labour activists outside Ankara’s main train station.
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Almost 100 were injured; ambulances rushed to take people to hospital in the immediate aftermath.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences in a telegram to Turkey’s president following the attack on a Kurdish wedding party, which he says shows the global community must work together in fighting terrorism.
Turkey’s president has blamed the Islamic State group for the bombing in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, near the border with Syria. However, according to CNN, no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Later, addressing the nation before Istanbul’s city hall, Erdogan said the attacker in Gaziantep was aged between 12 and 14.
Earlier in the day the extremist group reportedly fired a mortar from Syrian soil into Turkey, and ISIL fighters pass relatively easily across the border.
Women and children, including a three-month-old baby, were among the dead, witnesses said.
The blast tore through party goers as the wedding celebrations were coming to an end.
Shouts of “shame on you, Erdogan” rang out while others hurled water bottles at police who kept their distance from rowdy crowds for fear of violence.
“I lost my children, now I will never see them again”, wailed one woman confronted with the sight of rows of freshly dug graves.
At least 12 people were buried today, but other funerals will have to wait because numerous victims were blown to pieces and DNA forensics tests would be needed to identify them, security sources said.
The attack itself was alarming enough, but the location of the attack is one where no one would normally suspect a bombing to take place (or at least would hope it wouldn’t) – at a wedding.
World leaders quickly condemned the attack, with President Francois Hollande denouncing the “vile” incident and pledging that France “stands with all who fight against the scourge of terrorism”. The Kurdish militants, which began fighting for autonomy and independence in southeast Turkey in 1984, is labeled by the government and its allies as a terrorist organization.
Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance, has been the victim of a string of attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the Islamo-leftist group known as PKK.
In addition to dealing with the ongoing Islamic State threat emerging from Syria, the Ankara government has been battling Kurdish separatist militias since the collapse of a ceasefire in July 2015.
Just a half an hour away from Gaziantep is the border town of Kilis which has been repeatedly hit by rockets and shells fired from Islamic State territory, sometimes killing civilians.
Earlier Sunday, Erdogan said there was “absolutely no difference” between IS, Kurdish rebels and Gulen’s movement, labeling them all terrorist groups.
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