File picture of forensic experts inspecting the area after a vehicle bomb attack targeting a minibus carrying members of the police special forces in Diyarbakir, Turkey March 31, 2016.
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The head of the Van security general directorate stated that the explosion occurred at around 11 p.m. near the Van Governor’s Office and the provincial headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Beşyol region.
A large explosion has hit the Turkish city of Van.
“It’s a crowded street, the centre of the boulevard”.
Van Police Chief Suat Ekici earlier told Anadolu two of the wounded were in critical condition but did not say whether they were police officers or civilians.
The blast on Monday, close to local government offices, wounded around 50 people, including four police officers and four Iranian citizens thought to have been visiting during the Muslim Eid holiday, officials said.
“We are determined to wipe out the PKK trouble from Turkey together with our security forces”, he said. “The terrorist organisation has targeted our party building and the AKP’s presence in the past. This is one of them”, he added. Windows of nearby houses and storefronts were also shattered in the blast.
Local television footage showed smoke billowing from a building and firefighters battling flames.
Turkey’s finance minister on Monday accused local municipalities under the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of having financed PKK terrorism, Anadolu agency reported.
The crackdown provoked violent protest in a number of towns and cities.
Turkey has a “binding duty” to defeat the Islamic State in neighboring Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an address Sunday.
“You, as mayors and municipal councils, can not stand up and support terrorist organisations”. You don’t have such an authority.
Erdogan, who also faces violent attacks by Islamic State militants, has vowed that a military campaign against the PKK will continue until it is eliminated.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party, the country’s main opposition party and the United States all have criticized the move.
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“They sent the support they received to the mountains, but this has all been discovered”, the president said, referring to Kurdish militant bases in the mountains of southeast Turkey and northern Iraq.
