Five people have been confirmed killed, and 40 others injured, after a vehicle bomb exploded outside a police station in the eastern Turkish city of Van on Wednesday, according to Democrat Haber, CNN reported.
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Kurdish militants have carried out frequent bomb attacks in southeast Turkey in recent months although Elazig has not been an area of significant conflict.
According to the local governor, the auto bomb exploded close to a police station, which also serves as a barracks, in the town of Ipekyolu late on Wednesday.
Video footage showed a plume of black smoke rising above the city after the blast, which uprooted trees and gouged a large crater outside the police complex, located on a busy thoroughfare in the city of 420,000 people. Cars were overturned and the windows of the four-story building and its wings were blown out. A government-paid village guard, helping the security forces battle the PKK was also killed in a clash with the rebels in the province, Anadolu reported.
“People of Van will not be discouraged by this incident”, Soganda said. “The intelligence that directs them is the same”.
Yildirim vowed to fight the PKK until it is “eliminated”.
The mainly Kurdish southeast has been embroiled in violence since a ceasefire between the state and the PKK collapsed in July previous year. Rights groups say about 400 civilians have also been killed. More than 40,000 people have been killed in violence since it first took up arms in 1984.
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The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. The Van governor’s office said the PKK was responsible. Thursday’s order asked media organizations to refrain from broadcasting and publishing anything that may cause “fear in the public, panic and disorder and which may serve the aims of terrorist organizations”.
