The TAK group claimed it was behind the March 13 attack in Ankara’s teeming Kizilay square, less than a month after claiming a similar bombing targeting army officers in the capital.
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“The U.S. Embassy also reminds individuals that terrorist organizations have targeted transportation hubs, Turkish government facilities, and public spaces in the recent past”, it said.
Last January, 12 German tourists were killed in a suicide attack blamed on the Islamic State group in the heart of Istanbul’s tourist district.
Lawmakers are expected to debate stripping immunity for members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third-biggest party which has Kurdish origins, over comments they have made on security operations in the largely Kurdish southeast.
Erdogan has also pushed for lawmakers from a pro-Kurdish party to be stripped of their parliamentary immunity so they can be prosecuted for “terrorist propaganda”. Some experts say that TAK is a breakaway from the PKK, the Deutsche Welle reports.
Every individual or country that criticizes Turkey over democracy and rule of law and doesn’t suport the war launched by the Turkish govenrment against terrorism is an enemy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.
The Turkish crackdown on the Kurdish areas began in July 2015, ending a ceasefire agreement between the sides that had held for two years.
Europe is “dancing in a minefield” by directly or indirectly supporting terrorist groups, Erdogan said at commemoration of the 101st anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli in the coastal town of Canakkale.
“We claim this attack”, the group wrote in Kurdish, the BBC reported. But the West supports Syrian Kurdish groups that Turkey considers as affiliates of the PKK and a threat to its national security.
The escalating violence has seen foreign missions in Turkey heighten security measures.
The EU-Turkey summit was aiming to flesh out a deal seeking to stem the flow of migrants into European countries via Turkey.
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“Yesterday evening, our security authorities received several concrete and very serious leads that terror attacks against our German representations in Turkey were being prepared”, he said.
