In an online statement, it promised to give more details Saturday on what it called a “comprehensive action took place to kill dozens of policemen by our fearless team in Cizre”.
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As for their motive, the militant group says the suicide bombing was done in retaliation for the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Abdullah Ocalan, being kept in continued isolation after being jailed some time ago.
Erdogan said in a statement that “The attack which occurred at a time when Turkey is fighting an intense war against the terrorist organisations inside and outside its borders will increase the resolve of our state and our nation”.
Cizre, a majority Kurdish town, has been badly hit by renewed violence between the PKK and government forces since the collapse of a ceasefire previous year. Hundreds of security force members, militants and civilians have been killed since.
The blast comes two days after Turkish tanks entered northern Syria to help Syrian rebels clear ISIS from a border town.
In addition to PKK bombings, ISIS has claimed terrorist attacks in the country such as the one at a Kurdish wedding that took place last week in southeast Turkey, killing 54 people and another at the Istanbul airport in June taking the lives of 44.
The local governor’s office said 11 officers were killed and 78 injured, three of them civilians.
Cizre was placed under 24-hour curfew for several weeks earlier this year as the security forces opened operations to root out Kurdish militants.
Since then, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK militants have been killed, according to Anadolu. Ankara considers the YPG, which has links to the PKK, as a terror group bent on carving out an autonomous Kurdish region on Turkey’s border.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The country is still recovering from last month’s failed coup attempt that killed about 270 people, which government believes was influenced by US -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
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The PKK also said it did not deliberately target the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party in an attack in the northeast on Thursday. The government has blamed the failed coup on the supporters of USA -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and has embarked on a sweeping crackdown on his followers.
