A vehicle laden with explosives reportedly targeted a convoy of buses carrying military personnel that were stopped at traffic lights, the army said.
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Turkey blamed the PKK – another Kurdish separatist group that the United States and Turkey both call a terror organization – for the Thursday attack.
The attack happened at the height of evening rush hour in the capital, not far from Turkey’s Parliament, government buildings and military headquarters.
Davutoglu nevertheless said the attack was the result of a collaboration between “the PKK together with a person (Necar) who sneaked into Turkey from Syria”.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said in a speech that the “blatant, treacherous attack was well organised” and that the explosion didn’t target the Turkish military in Ankara alone but the whole nation, according to Andalou News Agency.
“The military says its convoy was hit by an explosion outside Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast”, Peter says.
A cease-fire between Turkey and the PKK collapsed in July.
Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, has participated in the U.S.-led anti Islamic State fight.
It said that despite Turkey’s “provocations and attacks” on Kurdish areas in Syria, it has never retaliated against Turkey.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which killed military personnel and civilians, although suspicion had immediately fallen on the PKK or Islamic State.
No group has claimed credit for it at this time.
The government also banned Turkish media from broadcasting or printing graphic images of the dead or injured from the scene of the explosion. The ambassadors of Germany and the Netherlands as well as the head of the European Union delegation to Turkey were also invited.
Turkey’s determination to respond to attacks targeting the country’s unity and its future outside and inside of its borders will get stronger, the president added.
The PYD’s leader has denied accusations that his group carried out the attack in the capital.
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Turkey has for decades been at war with the PKK, which operates in southern Turkey and northern Iraq and agitates for greater independence. Kurdish militia fighters, regarded by Ankara as hostile insurgents, have taken advantage of the violence to seize territory from Syrian rebels.
