Ankara blast: Turkey PM says Syria Kurds to blame

Davutoglu said the bombing showed that the Syrian Kurdish YPG is a terrorist organisation and that Turkey expects cooperation from its allies against the group.

Davutoglu said 26 of the 28 people killed in the bombing of a military convoy in the capital Ankara on Wednesday were soldiers.

Turkey said a separate attack by PKK militants Thursday in the country’s southeast killed six soldiers.

Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara that the bombing was carried out by a Syrian national named Salih Necar, adding that nine people had been detained in connection with the attack.

Salih Muslim, leader of the main Syrian Kurdish group, denied his group was behind the Ankara attack and warned Turkey against taking ground action in Syria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which killed military personnel and civilians, although suspicion had immediately fallen on the PKK or Islamic State.

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.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who had been due to attend meetings in Brussels on the migration crisis on Thursday, cancelled the trip, an official in his office said.

The military said Thursday that Turkish jets attacked PKK positions in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region, hitting the group of rebels which it said included a number of senior PKK leaders.

“We will continue our fight against the pawns that carry out such attacks, which know no moral or humanitarian bounds, and the forces behind them with more determination every day”, Erdogan said in a statement.

The vehicle bomb went off late on Wednesday in Turkey’s capital during evening rush hour.

“The U.S. has refused to name the PYD a terrorist group as it is cooperating with the group in fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria”.

Paul T. Levin, head of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies, told the AP: “it will be interesting to see how the United States reacts because they view the YPG as an ally…”

“Turkey’s losses in its struggle against terrorism are challenging its patience”, he added, stressing that Turkey will overcome the attacks.

Turkey has for decades been at war with the PKK, which operates in southern Turkey and northern Iraq and agitates for greater independence.

“We strongly condemn this cowardly attack which appears to have targeted buses carrying Turkish military personnel”.

103 people were killed and 250 others injured when two suicide bombers detonated explosives at a peace rally in Ankara on October 10.

Turkey said the capture of Azaz by the YPG would be a “red line” and has vowed not to let it fall into Kurdish hands.