PKK splinter group claims Ankara bombing

It has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks since 2004.

At least 28 people were killed and 61 were injured when a vehicle bomb detonated near military buses stopped at traffic lights in Ankara’s administrative hub.

Mr Davutoglu also blamed Syria’s government for allegedly backing the Syrian Kurdish militias.

Suspicion had immediately fallen on the PKK or the Islamic State group.

“Aside from security measures across Turkey, a new and special security mechanism and an action plan that accounts for Ankara’s unique properties will be prepared”, Davutoglu told reporters.

Earlier, Mr Erdogan said he had “no doubt” that US-backed Syrian Kurdish groups carried out the bombing.

Although the TAK named the suicide bomber as Abdulbaki Sonmez, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu identified Syrian national Salih Neccar, a YPG member, as the attacker.

The group once was linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, also known as the PKK, which has been engaged in a decadeslong war with the Turkish state. “The TAK is claiming responsibility in order to prevent the legitimacy of the YPG not be harmed in global community”, Davutoglu said.

Turkey’s military said after that its jets conducted cross-border raids against Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq hours after the attack and struck a group of about 60 to 70 PKK rebels.

The bombing in the capital, Ankara, made President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even more combative; he vowed to strike at enemies in Syria or anywhere else.

Washington, which does not consider the YPG a terrorist organization, has said it is not in a position to confirm or deny Ankara’s charge the militia was behind the bombing.

The statement said the group would “take revenge for all the suffering of the Kurdish people” and said the attack in Ankara was against the “fascist” Turkish state. “If you disregard all relations and connections among these and only say “I will send weapons to the YPG so that they can do this”, you cannot get the whole strategic picture”, Kalın said in televised remarks, using Daesh as an acronym for ISIL.

“The Turkish population, regardless of how polarised it is on domestic issues, on the Kurdish issue they are united…that the Kurdish groups fighting Turkey should be dealt with [using] force”, Elshayyal said.

Turkey has in the last months waged an all-out assault on the PKK, which has repeatedly attacked members of the security forces with roadside bombings on their convoys in the southeast. The PKK was also reported to be responsible for a Thursday bombing in southeastern Turkey that killed six soldiers, according to Anadolu Agency.