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Turkey Arrests 14 Over Ankara Bombing; Leaders Blame Kurdish Groups

“It has been revealed that this attack was carried out by members of the terrorist organisation in cooperation with a YPG [Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units] member who infiltrated [Turkey] from Syria”, Mr Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara.

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The attack comes as Turkey gets dragged ever deeper into the war in neighboring Syria and tries to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Damascus calls on the UN Security Council to bind terrorist-supporting regimes, including the Turkish one, to execute anti-terrorist resolutions, to terminate relations with Daesh, (the Arabic name for the Islamic State terrorist organization), Jabhat en-Nusra and other terrorist organizations associated with Al-Qaeda.

This is the third deadly bombing in Turkey this year.

The explosion, in Diyarbakir province, occurred on Diyarbakir-Lice highway near Mermer Gendermarie military outpost, said the report.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he hopes the perpetrators of the attack “will be swiftly brought to justice”.

But the head of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party on Thursday denied Turkish allegations that the group was involved in the bombing.

Davutoglu said they have clear links with the YPG.

Wednesday’s blast in Ankara targeted buses carrying military personnel.

Turkey considers both the PKK and YPG to be terror groups, in a rare rift with the United States which only classifies the PKK as a terror outfit and works closely with the YPG as an effective force fighting IS militants in Syria.

Turkey has been battling PKK militants in its own southeast, where a 2-1/2 year ceasefire collapsed last July and pitched the region into its worst bloodshed since the 1990s.

The bomber reportedly had links to Daesh, while many of those targeted were planning to travel to the Syrian city of Kobane to help with rebuilding efforts after the large parts of the city was destroyed during fighting between Kurdish groups and Daesh. In Iraq next door, the Turkish air force has resumed airstrikes in the Qandil mountains, where the PKK have bases.

“In addition to the elevated geopolitical tensions, we believe that the Turkish financial assets may underperform due to the security concerns in the medium term”, a note from Odeabank said.

“Our determination to respond in kind against such attacks against our unity and future from outside and inside is even more strengthened through such attacks”, Erdogan declared in a statement.

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Turkish warplanes conducted a wide-scale air operation on February 17 targeting outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq.

Military targeted in Turkish capital bombing