A powerful explosion rocked Turkey’s capital on Wednesday, sending a plume of smoke rising over Ankara as police and rescue workers raced to the scene.
At least 25 people were killed and 45 others were injured in a bomb attack on buses transporting Turkish military personnel in the capital, Ankara, today.
Officials said the bomb had targeted buses carrying military personnel.
Turkey regards the Syrian Democratic Union Party, and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units as terrorists due to their affiliation to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish rebel group.
Authorities said an explosive-filled auto detonated at an intersection when three military vehicles were nearby.
The explosion occurred during evening rush hour in the heart of Ankara, in an area close to parliament and armed forces headquarters.
Islamic State was blamed for last October’s suicide bombing at a peace rally in Ankara which killed more than 100 people – the bloodiest single terrorist attack since Turkey became a modern state in 1923.
TURKEY has launched overnight air strikes on Kurdish rebel camps in northern Iraq after a vehicle bomb in Ankara killed at least 28 people.
“We have no link to these bombings and with what is happening inside Turkey“, he told the AP.
Their tweet accuses President Erdogan of blaming Kurds for the bombing as a way of distracting the Turkish people from “failed” foreign and domestic policies.
“It should be known that Turkey will not abstain from using its right to self-defense every time, everywhere and in every situation”, Erdogan said.
The Syrian Kurdish PYD party, to whom the YPG is affiliated, said it “completely refuted” the claims of its involvement.
The PKK has resumed violence against the Turkish government after their peace process collapsed last summer.
Erdogan expressed the determination of Turkey to continue the fight against terrorism and those supporting terrorist attacks.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said there can be no justification “for such horrific acts” and that “NATO allies stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against terrorism“.
Meanwhile, a military convoy in south-east Turkey has been hit by a bomb, killing at least six troops.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who had been on account of attend conferences in Brussels on the migration disaster on Thursday, cancelled the journey, an official in his workplace stated.