Officials say Saturday’s attack in Gaziantep, near Syria’s border, appeared to be a suicide bombing.
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Erdoğan said there was a high possibility it was a suicide attack. He said 69 people were wounded, with 17 of them in critical condition.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. In October past year, suicide bombers killed at least 95 people when they attacked a rally of pro-Kurdish and labour activists outside Ankara’s main train station.
Turkey is still tense after an attempted coup on July 15 which Ankara blames on US -based preacher Fethullah Gulen. Gulen denies any involvement. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, said in a statement that the wedding was for one of its members, and women and children had been among those killed.
Turkey’s president has blamed the Islamic State group for the bombing of an outdoor wedding party near Syria’s border that killed 50 people and wounded dozens of others. Women in white and chequered scarves cried, sitting crosslegged outside the morgue waiting for word on missing relatives.
“Those, who can not overcome Turkey and try to provoke people by abusing ethnic and sectarian sensitiveness, will not prevail”, he said. “There was blood and body parts everywhere”.
“No matter what this treacherous terror organization is called, we as the people, the state, and the government will pursue our determined struggle against it”, he said.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. ” the president stated in a statement on Sunday, as cited by Cumhuriyet newspaper”.
Hundreds gathered for funerals on Sunday, some weeping at coffins draped in the green colour of Islam, local television images showed.
In Gaziantep, the chief prosecutor’s office said they had found a destroyed suicide vest at the blast site.
IS suicide bombers have carried out attacks in Istanbul several times this year, while Kurdish militants have hit targets in both Ankara and Istanbul.
Violence has also flared again this week in the largely Kurdish southeast.
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On Thursday, 12 people were killed in a spate of bombings blamed on the PKK, who Erdogan said had killed 70 members of the security forces in the last month alone. A fragile, 2½-year-long peace process between the party and the government collapsed last year, leading to a resumption of the conflict spanning three decades.
