The bomb, believed to have been planted by Kurdish militants, ripped through a military vehicle. said.
Advertisement
Three police officers were killed and 170 people wounded by a auto bomb at a police station in Turkey’s eastern city of Elazig on Thursday, the local governor’s office said, hours after a similar attack killed three people elsewhere in the region.
Images on Turkish television showed severe damage to the building, with a large plume of black smoke rising from the headquarters.
They said the blast killed three soldiers and a member of the state-sponsored village guard militia and wounded another seven soldiers.
“No terror organization will force this nation to cow in submission”, Yildirim said.
In Van province, further east, two police officers and one civilian were killed and 73 people were wounded late on Wednesday when a vehicle bomb exploded near a police station, the local governor’s office said in a statement. Dozens of other people, including some 20 police officers, were wounded.
Yildirim blamed the PKK for the attack.
Van Governor Ibrahim Tasyapan said the PKK was behind the attack, and that police had apprehended a suspect, Anadolu reported.
Speaking in Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey was jointly attacked by various organizations who he said were in close contact with each other and were “acting under the same motivations even if they have different names”.
The southeast has been scorched by violence since a two-and-a-half-year ceasefire with the PKK collapsed in July last year. “The terrorist organization has lost its chain of command”. Since then, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK militants have been killed, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.
Considered a terror group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 seeking an independent state for the country’s Kurdish minority.
The latest wave of attacks come as the government carries out a sweeping crackdown on those among the various branches of the military and civil service it says is responsible for a failed coup attempt last month.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman Ned Price issued a statement condemning the attacks.
Amnesty International also condemned the auto bombings, which it labeled as “the latest in a series of reckless and brutal attacks”. “Its elements inside (Turkey) are carrying out suicide attacks randomly wherever they get the opportunity”, Yildirim told reporters in Elazig.
Advertisement
Turkey frequently imposes such bans following deadly bomb attacks. The terrorist organization won’t find the right to live anywhere.
