Erdogan previously said the suicide bomber was a child himself, aged between 12 and 14.
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Syrian activists have said that hundreds of Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters have gathered in the Turkish border area of Karkamis in preparation for an attack on Jarablus.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkey’s prime minister’s office says the Turkish military and the US -backed coalition forces have launched an operation to clear a Syrian border town from Islamic State militants.
A senior rebel official also said Turkish-backed Syrian rebels were preparing to launch an attack to seize the Syrian town of Jarablus from IS on the border with Turkey, a move that would deny control to advancing Syrian Kurdish fighters.
Cavusoglu did not confirm the rebel plans, but said Ankara supports any group fighting Islamic State.
The attack on Saturday in Gaziantep is proof that while Syria bleeds profusely, the spillover into Turkey is very real and seems to be largely uncontainable.
In the past year, Turkey has suffered a series of extremist attacks by Kurdish militants and radical Islamists, the deadliest being a double bombing on a peace rally in Ankara and a triple suicide bombing at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.
“Daesh should be completely cleansed from our borders and we are ready to do what it takes for that”, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a news conference in Ankara.
In an earlier written statement, Erdogan said there is “no difference” between Islamic State, the militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, and Gulen’s followers.
Writing in The Independent following that attack, Yasmin Ahmed said: “There seems to be limits to our solidarity and these boundaries look uncomfortably like the map of western Europe”.
On Monday, Turkish artillery attacked a US -backed Syrian Kurdish militia as well as IS positions in Syria.
Thirteen of those killed were women, Turkish media said.
Both of those attacks were blamed on Islamic State.
ISIS, which has struck before in Gaziantep and reportedly has a strong presence in the city, traditionally hasn’t claimed responsibility for attacks on Turkish soil.
The state-run Anadolu Agency reported Turkey has increased security measures at its border opposite Jarablus, deploying tanks and armoured personnel carriers.
However, a security official said they were investigating the possibility militants could have placed the explosives on the child without their knowledge and detonated them remotely.
Sixty-six others were being treated in hospital, 14 in serious condition.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party said that all of the people killed were Kurds.
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The bride and groom – a couple from the strongly Kurdish region of Siirt to the southeast – were rushed to hospital but not seriously wounded.
