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.
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No matter what this treacherous terror organization is called, we as the people, the state, and the government will pursue our determined struggle against it.
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”.
Earlier, Mr Erdogan said there was “absolutely no difference” between IS, Kurdish rebels and Gulen’s movement, calling them terrorist groups.
He said there were a number of reasons that the Sunni terror group – if it is responsible for the attack – could have been motivated to strike Kurdish targets.
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.
But in a statement condemning the attack, Erdogan identified ISIS as the likely perpetrator.
The attack comes as the country is still reeling from last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers. Anti-ISIS activists in Gaziantep were also killed by the group in April and December, and an ISIS-linked suicide vehicle bomber struck outside the city’s police headquarters in May, killing two police personnel. The deadliest one was last October, when suicide bombers killed more than 100 people at a rally of pro-Kurdish and labor activists in Ankara.
Media reports say 22 people have been killed.
The explosion was the latest attack to rock the key North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member in a horrific year that has seen strikes blamed on Kurdish and Islamist militants as well as a bloody July 15 botched coup. Gulen has denied any involvement. A fragile, 2½ year peace process between the PKK and the government collapsed last year, leading to a resumption of the three-decade-long conflict.
“Putting these three organizations with different political objectives, tactics and techniques into the same basket. causes the failure of tailoring specific counter strategies”, he said.
Following the attack, police sealed off the site of the explosion and forensic teams moved in.
“But God willing, we will overcome”, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told NTV, using the term Daesh, the Arabic name for ISIS.
Erdogan told reporters the death toll was now 51 with 94 hurt in the attack.
Over 200 guests piled into a street in the city of Gaziantep in the nation’s Sahinbey district, near the Syrian border, to celebrate the Kurdish street wedding now enfolding when the blast occurred somewhere around 11 p.m. local time say local witnesses. “That is not the fight against terror that we mean”, he added. “They will not yield”.
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Hundreds gathered for funerals on Sunday, with coffins draped in the green of Islam.
