Turkey’s prime minister said Monday that the Islamic State terror group (ISIS) was suspected of carrying out Saturday’s double suicide bombing at a peace demonstration in Ankara that killed at least 97 people. The Prime Minister has remarked about the terrorist group’s role in the blast, while the government was criticized for the ill safety measures taken.
Advertisement
“This is an attack on the whole of Turkey”.
The decades-long Turkish-Kurdish conflict has reignited since a 2013 ceasefire deal broke down in late July when the government launched airstrikes against both Kurdish and IS targets in Syria after IS claimed a suicide attack in the town of Suruç in southeast Turkey.
ISIS has been frequently blamed for these attacks, although the group has not claimed responsibility, which is unusual.
Speaking to Turkish broadcaster NTV, Mr Davutoglu said Saturday’s attack was an attempt to influence the result of parliamentary elections on 1 November and that steps would be taken if security failures were found to have contributed to the bombing.
“We are close to identifying one of the bombers”, he said on Monday.
Davutoglu also said that Turkey is “close” to identifying two suicide bombers who killed 97 people in Ankara on Saturday.
The BBC’s Mark Lowen in Ankara says that critics of the Turkish government believe it is using IS as a scapegoat, and that murky elements of a so-called “deep state” are to blame for the bombings, aiming to shore up support ahead of the elections.
Also on Sunday, pro-Kurdish activists held a similar rally in the German city of Leipzig to show their solidarity with the victims of the Saturday twin bombings in Ankara.
The four organisations he hinted at were the Islamic State (IS), the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), along with two “Leftist” organisations, namely, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP).
Several thousand people, mostly Kurds, demonstrated in Paris and Brussels over the weekend protesting the violence against Kurds and condemning the Ankara attacks.
The funerals were due to be attended by Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which said it was the target of the blasts.
China opposes terrorism in any form and strongly condemns such terrorist attacks aimed at civilians, Xi said in his message to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Advertisement
“The PKK has been calling on the government to agree on a ceasefire for more the two weeks, saying it is impossible to carry out elections in these conditions”, Baran told MEE.
