Turkey’s prime minister said Monday that the Islamic State terror group (ISIS) was suspected of carrying out Saturday’s double suicide bombing at a peace demonstration in Ankara that killed at least 97 people.
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In a letter to Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Queen offered her “heartfelt sympathy” to the Turkish people following Saturday’s attacks.
It was not clear where the arrests, announced Monday, were linked to the suicide bombings at a rally promoting peace with the Kurdish rebels. Authorities were close to identifying one of the suicide bombers through DNA tests, which will help determine what group was responsible.
“We’re close to a name, which points to one group”, he said, without giving further details.
Recall, two explosions occurred in Turkey’s capital before the beginning of the rally, which was organized by trade unions and social organizations under the slogan “Work, Peace, Democracy” in order to protest at the outbreak of violence because of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict in the southeastern part of the country.
The HDP has put the death toll from the bombings at 128 and said it had identified all but eight of the bodies. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but three terrorist organisations are under suspicion.
Scuffles broke out on Sunday morning as police used tear gas on pro-Kurdish mourners who attempted to pay their respects to the victims.
In his first interview since Turkey was scarred on Saturday by its most deadly ever attack, Davutoglu insisted that snap elections would go ahead as planned on November 1 despite the bloodshed. That backfired and electoral gains in June by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party left the ruling party without even a parliamentary majority. “The political polarization, uncertainty over the formation of Turkey’s pending government, and the mounting local and external security challenges will likely keep the Turkish political, geopolitical risk premium elevated”. The Hurriyet newspaper said the type of device and explosives used in Ankara were the same as those used in the Suruç attack.
The PKK is a militant group that has fought a long and bitter separatist campaign against the Turkish state for more than 30 years.
However, the IS group has openly claimed past attacks, sometimes opportunistically taking responsibility for actions it did not direct. There has been no such claim for the Ankara bombing, and sceptics see the group as a convenient scapegoat.
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On Saturday, the PKK called a new ceasefire but the Turkish government rejected it and launched a fresh round of airstrikes against Kurdish positions on Sunday.
