REUTERS - Turkey on Sunday
vowed vengeance against Kurdish militants it said were likely behind twin
bombings that killed 38 people and wounded 155 in what
appeared to be a
coordinated attack on police outside a soccer stadium in Istanbul.
The blasts on
Saturday night - a car bomb outside the Vodafone Arena, home to Istanbul's
Besiktas soccer team, followed by a suicide bomb attack in an adjacent park
less than a minute later - shook a nation still trying to recover from a series
of deadly bombings this year in cities including Istanbul and the capital
Ankara.
There was no claim
of responsibility, but Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said there was
"almost no doubt" the attacks were the work of the militant Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a three-decade insurgency, mainly in
Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast. Thirteen people have been detained, Interior
Minister Suleyman Soylu said.
"Sooner or
later, we will have our vengeance. This blood will not be left on the ground,
no matter what the price, what the cost," Soylu said in a speech at a
funeral at the Istanbul police headquarters for five of the officers killed.
President Tayyip Erdogan was present but did not speak, although he greeted and
hugged some of the family members.
Soylu also warned
those who would offer support to the attackers on social media or elsewhere,
comments aimed at pro-Kurdish politicians the government accuses of having
links to the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United
States, Europe and Turkey.
"To those
trying to defend the perpetrators from podiums, over the media or internet, and
trying to make up excuses. There is no excuse for this ... Know this: the blade
of the state stretches far and wide."
In recent months,
thousands of Kurdish politicians have been detained including dozens of mayors
and the leaders of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), parliament's
second-biggest opposition party, accused of links to the PKK.
The crackdown
against Kurdish politicians has coincided with widespread purges of state
institutions following a failed coup in July that the government blames on
followers of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric. Turkey says the measures are necessary
to defend its security. Rights groups and some Western allies accuse it of
ignoring the rule of law and trampling on freedoms.
In a statement, the
pro-Kurdish HDP condemned the attack and urged the government to end what it
called the language and politics of "polarization, hostility and
conflict".
RIOT POLICE AND PARK
Soylu, the interior
minister, said the first explosion, which came around two hours after the match
between Besiktas and Bursaspor, was at an assembly point for riot police. The
second came as police surrounded the suicide bomber in the nearby Macka park.
Thirty-eight people died,
including 30 police and seven civilians, he said. One person remained
unidentified.
A total of 155
people were being treated in hospital, with 14 of them in intensive care and
five in surgery, Health Minister Recep Akdag told a news conference.
Flags flew at half
mast, and Sunday was declared a day of national mourning. A march against
terrorism had been called in Istanbul.
President Erdogan
canceled a planned trip to Kazakhstan, his office said.
"What we must
focus on is this terror burden. Our people should have no doubt we will
continue our battle against terror until the end," Erdogan told reporters
outside a hospital where he had been visiting some of the injured.
Deputy Prime
Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Turkey's allies should show solidarity with it in
the fight against terrorism, a reference to disagreements with fellow NATO
member Washington over Syria policy. The United States backs the Syrian Kurdish
YPG in the fight against Islamic State. Turkey says the militia is an extension
of the PKK and a terrorist group.
In addition to the
Kurdish insurgency, Turkey is battling Islamic State as a member of the
U.S.-led coalition against the jihadist group. Less than a week ago, Islamic
State urged its supporters to target Turkey's "security, military,
economic and media establishment".
'MY SON WAS
MASSACRED'
Video purporting to
show the father of one of the victims, a 19-year-old medical student who had
been in Istanbul for a weekend visit, went viral on social media in Turkey.
"I don't want
my son to be a martyr, my son was massacred," the footage showed the
father saying. "His goal was to be a doctor and help people like this, but
now I am carrying him back in a funeral car."
Security remained
tight in Istanbul, with police helicopters buzzing overhead in the Besiktas
district near the stadium.
NATO
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemned what he described as
"horrific acts of terror", while European leaders also sent messages
of solidarity. The United States condemned the attack and said it stood with
its NATO ally.
The bombings come
five months after Turkey was shaken by a failed military coup, in which more
than 240 people were killed, many of them in Istanbul, as rogue soldiers
commandeered tanks and fighter jets in a bid to seize power.
Istanbul has seen
several other attacks this year, including in June, when around 45 people were
killed and hundreds wounded as three suspected Islamic State militants carried
out a gun and bomb attack on its main Ataturk airport.
REUTERS
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