At least 28 people dead following explosion in Turkish capital

Firefighters work at a scene of fire from an explosion in Ankara, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016.

An explosion near a group of military buildings in Turkey’s capital has killed at least 28 people and wounded 61 others, according to Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş.

The attack happened at a time when a high-level security meeting, hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was being held at the presidential palace.

In Ankara, Davutoglu said the attack on a military bus was carried out by the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, in coordination with separatist rebels of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

Police said a vehicle bomb was detonated near a military headquarters, sending dark smoke billowing into the sky, at around 6.30pm.

The Turkish military condemned the bombing, which it described as a terrorist attack. “It must be known that Turkey will not refrain from using its right to self-defense at all times”.

Thus, Erdogan’s rebuke of the American administration appears to be a last attempt to exert pressure on Washington to support the safe zone plan.

“We take this threat very seriously because the ruling party in Turkey is a party of war”, Rodi Osman, head of the Syrian Kurds’ newly-opened representative office said in Kurdish via a Russian interpreter.

No one was injured in the blast in the Swedish capital, which took place at around 9.30pm after police and the national bomb squad were alerted to an “imminent danger of explosion” at 1.20pm, Aftonbladet reports.

Images from the scene showed fire-fighters trying to overcome a fierce blaze from wrecked service buses. A second blast later rocked the area, the AFP correspondent said, but officials said this was police detonating a suspicious package.

The spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Omer Celik, said on Twitter he strongly condemned the “act of terror”. “NATO Allies stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against terrorism”.

French President Francois Hollande denounced the attack as “odious”. “It has been revealed that the extensions of this attack are both inside- and outside-linked”.

Last October, suicide bombers attacked and killed more than 100 people among a big crowd that had gathered outside Ankara’s main train station to call for an end to the resumption of violence that had been growing in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast since last July.

Kurdish militants, radical leftists, and Islamic radicals have all staged bombings in Turkey in recent years. Hundreds of people have been killed in renewed fighting following the collapse of the peace process and tens of thousands have been displaced.

The prime minister blames the attack on the Kurdish militia in Syria, Turkey’s own outlawed Kurdish rebel group and the Syrian government.

That attack in Istanbul killed at least 10 people.