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Germany Closes Embassy, Consulate, School In Turkey Over Fresh Terror Threat

The explosion in Guvenpark area of the Kizilay commercial, administrative, and transport hub district of Ankara did not target civilians said the TAK statement.

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Many fear Turkey is on the brink of civil war.

The ministry said the German school in Istanbul has also been shut due to an “unconfirmed warning”.

The PKK, or Kurdistan Worker’s Party, which seeks an independent state in Turkey, has been in an armed struggle with Turkey for decades and has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and EU.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued a brief statement later on Thursday morning in Berlin.

They have added the bloodbath was planned as a revenge for Turkish military operations in the city of Cizre in southeastern Turkey.

More than 200 people have died in five suicide bombings in Turkey since July that were blamed either on the Kurdish rebels or IS.

The German embassy in Ankara, the Istanbul consulate and German schools in both cities were closed Thursday as a precaution.

In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s bombing, the Turkish authorities pointed the finger at the PKK, against which Ankara has waged a relentless assault since late last year after a shaky two-year truce collapsed.

The name in the claim of responsibility corresponds with the findings of Turkey’s Interior Ministry, which on Tuesday had identified the suicide auto bomber as a 24-year-old woman who became a Kurdish rebel in 2013 and had trained in Syria.

The Kurdish Freedom Falcons, or TAK – an offshoot of the Kurdish separatist group PKK – said on its website that militants struck Sunday “in the heart of (the) fascist Turkish republic”.

The TAK is a little-known group which has nonetheless risen to prominence in recent months after the February bombing and after it claimed a mortar attack on Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport on December 23.

On Monday, March 14 Turkish F-16 and F-14 jet fighter planes hit PKK positions in Qanti and Gara in Northern Iraq in retaliation for the terrorist attack.

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In an interview with The Times, PKK chieftain Cemil Bayik had warned Turkey to expect payback “everywhere” for the deadly clashes in the southeast.

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