Reuters, Istanbul :
Turkey on Sunday vowed vengeance against Kurdish militants, who it said one 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.
