A auto bomb rocked the eastern Turkish city of Van today, leaving 19 people including two police officers wounded, a ruling party lawmaker said.
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The blast took place around 200 meters from the city’s provisional governor’s office, according to security officials cited by Reuters.
Iranian nationals may have been among the wounded, CNN Turk said. Van sits about 100 km (60 miles) from the border with Iran.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The blast tore the front off a four-storey building. Governor Tasyapan said more people could have been hurt had nearby businesses not been closed.
“Sooner or later, we will drown the scum who detonated a 1,000 kilogram bomb in Van on the first day of holy Eid al-Adha in their own blood”, he said.
The 24 municipalities had been run by the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest in parliament, which denies direct links to the militants.
Four towns in the province of Van were affected by the removals of the elected officials. “The terrorist organisation has targetted our party building and the AK Party’s presence in the past”.
Ankara’s incursion last month into northern Syria has helped Syrian rebels retake Jarablus from the Islamic State group. It decried the move as an “administrative coup”.
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“To me, it is a step that came late”.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told Anadolu agency that security forces had taken precautions to prevent violent attacks during the nine-day Eid al-Adha festival.
“You, as mayors and municipal councils, can not stand up and support terrorist organisations”.
“You do not have such an authority”.
“They are carrying TNT (explosives)”.
The PKK have fought since 1984 for an autonomous Kurdistan in southeastern Turkey in what is historically Assyrian and Armenian land.
Turkey’s government replaced 28 mayors, whom the Interior Ministry accuses of terrorist ties, with trustees, sparking demonstrations and worldwide concern.
The U.S. Embassy, too, issued a “statement of concern”.
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Turkey’s government has said the failed coup, which left 240 people dead, was organized by followers of Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Saylorsburg, Pa., and by his social service organizations in Turkey, which the Turkish government has labeled together as the “Fetullah Terrorist Organization”.
