A Turkish official confirmed that initial findings suggest PKK or a PKK-affiliated terrorist organization carried out the attack.
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He gave an overall toll of 37, but said this included at least one attacker and possibly two. In the hours following the attack, the number killed had increased to 37, Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu agency.
Sunday’s attack, tearing through a crowded transport hub a few hundred meters from the Justice and Interior Ministries, was the second such strike at the administrative heart of the Turkish capital in under a month. But he held back from blaming any particular group.
James Larsen, Australia’s ambassador to Turkey, was in a vehicle just 65ft away from where the bomb went off.
At least one suspected bomber, who sources say was a female member of the Kurdish rebel PKK, also died.
Turkish president Recep Erdogan vowed to continue the fight against terrorism, adding: “Our people should not worry, the struggle against terrorism will for certain end in success and terrorism will be brought to its knees”.
Another victim, 19-year-old engineering student Ozan Can Akkus, had lost a friend in an October bombing, the newspaper Hurriyet said.
Kurdish militants are thought to be behind the suicide bombing but no group has claimed responsibility.
Sunday’s blast comes less than a month after another major auto bombing in Ankara, which left 30 people dead and was claimed by a shadowy hardline Kurdish splinter group.
Sunday’s blast comes at a delicate moment for Turkey, as it seeks to persuade the European Union to speed up its path to membership of the bloc in return for help with the migrant crisis.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter that he was “appalled” by the attack.
Authorities also declared curfews in Yuksekova, Nusaybin and Sirnak, largely Kurdish towns in southeastern Turkey.
The explosives were the same kind as those used on February 17 and the bomb had been reinforced with pellets and nails to cause maximum damage, the source said.
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“Pro-government media quickly pointed to supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, even though past PKK attacks have largely focused on military or police targets”.
