Kurdish TAK group claims attacks near Istanbul stadium
Kurdish militant group TAK claims responsibility for Saturday's deadly attack on police officers and civilians outside stadium in the centre of Istanbul
Turkey is holding a day of mourning for the people killed in Saturday's bomb attacks
The Kurdish militant group TAK has claimed responsibility for Saturday's deadly attack on police outside a stadium in Istanbul.
The TAK, an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), made this claim on its website.
At least 38 people were killed and 160 injured near the Vodafone Arena in the centre of Istanbul when a car bomb hit a police vehicle and a suicide bomber blew himself up nearby. The attack occurred two hours after fans had left the stadium, which hosted a match between Besiktas and Bursaspor.
Earlier on Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that initial findings pointed towards the PKK. He added that about 300-400kg (660-880lb) of explosives had been used in Saturday evening's attack.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the press on Sunday that Turkey would fight "the scourge of terrorism to the end", and promised that the attackers would pay a "heavy price".
“Nobody should doubt that with God’s will, we as a country and a nation will overcome terror, terrorist organisations…and the forces behind them,” he said.
Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu said that 13 people have been arrested in connection with the attacks and that the authorities had some insight into how and when it was planned.
“Our friends’ evaluations suggest that the PKK was the perpetrator. There is a framework as to how the act was planned, when it was planned and how it was executed.”
In a furious address on Sunday at a funeral for the murdered police officers, Soylu slammed Kurdish rebels and their Western allies and referred to the PKK as “animals”.
“Have you accomplished anything beyond being the servants, pawns and hit men of certain dark forces, of your dark Western partners?” he asked.
The PKK has for decades waged an insurgency against the Turkish state, a battle which has claimed the lives on tens of thousands of people. Turkish officials have frequently accused the West of directly and indirectly supporting the Kurdish insurgency and of interfering in the government’s fight against terrorism.
