Dozens also wounded after car bomb detonates in capital of Ankara
Around 28 people have been killed after an apparent car bomb shook the Turkish capital of Ankara.
Health Minister, Mehmet Muezzinoglu, said a further 61 civilians were wounded.
A statement from the armed forces said a bus carrying military personnel was targeted when it stopped at a set of traffic lights outside army barracks.
It is presumed the blast occurred in the centre of the city, just a few hundred metres away from the parliament and the military headquarters.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was determined to fight those who carried out the attack as well as the ‘forces’ supporting them.
Following the attack, AKP, Turkey’s ruling party spokesman Ömer Çelik posted on Twitter: “Terror has attacked treacherously in Ankara. We curse this attack.”
A Turkish official told Reuters that early signs indicated that the attack was carried out by the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) – which has carried out attacks on Turkey in recent months – but no other sources have confirmed this.
Ankara has been on high on alert since October, after 103 people were massacred in a suicide attack on a crowd of peaceful protestors.
In January, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the tourist heart of Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul, killing 11 people.
The attacks were blamed on Daesh.
Turkey is waging an all-out assault on the PKK, which has repeatedly attacked members of the security forces with roadside bombings on their convoys in the south-east.
The PKK launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984. It was initially fighting for Kurdish independence although now its aim is more focused on greater autonomy and rights for Turkey’s largest ethnic minority.
The banned ultra-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) has also staged a string of usually small-scale attacks in Istanbul over the last few months.
Turkey’s president says there is evidence to prove the Kurdish YPG militia based in Syria were behind Wednesday’s deadly bombing in Ankara.
President Erdogan said they had been supported by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey. Both groups deny any involvement in the attack.
He also said there had been 14 arrests over the attack on the military convoy.
