A KURDISH splinter group claimed responsibility yesterday for Sunday’s suicide auto bombing that killed 37 people in Ankara.
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In a statement posted online, the group described the latest auto bombing on Sunday, at a crowded public transport hub, as revenge for security operations in the mainly Kurdish south-east that have been under way since July.
The March 13 attack came three weeks after a similar auto bombing in Ankara killed 29 people, also claimed by TAK.
He criticised Belgium in particular for allowing the PKK to erect a tent behind the EU Council building in Brussels, where European leaders were locked in talks Friday with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on tackling the migrant crisis.
Turkey says the Syrian Kurdish fighters have links to the PKK.
The group, which Turkey considers to be a terrorist organization, seeks to create a Kurdish state in parts of Turkey and Iraq.
In the statement on its website, TAK confirmed Demir led a team of attackers, referring to her as “our comrade”.
“Therefore I decided that the German embassy in Ankara, the general consulate in Istanbul and the German schools in both cities should remain closed”. “Soon, however, the group started to follow its own course, choosing a more radical line than the PKK”.
Several towns have been under curfew with military operations to clear out what the government of Turkey calls terrorists, but critics argue that heavy-handed operations are collective punishment and that the security forces have been acting with impunity killing civilians.
The report also said she was in Syria by December 6, 2013, after traveling to the city of Diyarbakir in the predominantly Kurdish southeast on November 30, 2013.
Numerous members of the TAK are former members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who split from the PKK to form their own militant group.
Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region over the past few months. The Kurdish terror group TAK claimed responsibility on Thursday.
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A s Turkey nears a deal that would grant it unprecedented integration into the European Union, the country resembles its Middle Eastern neighbours ever more closely.
