Deputy PM: Turkey and citizens targeted in Ankara

ANKARA

Turkey and Turkish citizens were targeted by the Saturday’s terror attack, Deputy Prime Minister in Turkey’s caretaker government Tugrul Turkes said Monday, insisting that there was no need to search for any other target.

Turkes spoke Monday in an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency’s editor desk in Ankara. 

“This was a peace rally, there were representatives of different civil society organizations, [...] were they the target?” Turkes asked, answering firmly: “No.”

He said that the target was Turkey and all Turkish citizens, and that it was not right to take into consideration the different groups present at the meeting.

At least 97 people have been killed in Saturday's twin bombings in front of Ankara’s train station, the prime minister’s office has said late Sunday. More than 240 people were injured in the attack. Three days of mourning for the victims were declared early Saturday.

Turkes said that the attack was not just against those participating in the peace rally but also against those getting out of the train station. “It was an open space, it was not a rally square.”

Answering criticism of lax security at the rally, Turkes said that the fact that measures to better protect the gathering had not been taken in front of the train station does not show any “weakness” in the rally’s security. He recalled that the rally was scheduled to take place in a square two or three kilometers away.

Turkes said that Sihhiye Square was the place where the rally should have taken place, and that “barriers had been put, there were police control points” at that location.

People’s Democratic Party (HDP) co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas accused the Turkish government of being responsible for the attacks, but Turkes said that it was “at least shameful” to accuse the government, seeing that the attack did not happen in the rally square.

Turkes said that a “mountain team”, referring to the PKK leaders sheltered in the Qandil Mountain in northern Iraq, ruled the HDP political structure. The HDP is represented in the Turkish parliament. The majority of its MPs come from the southeastern part of Turkey, where there is a considerable number of citizens of Kurdish origin.  

“HDP is the political wing of the PKK,” Turkes said. “I’m sorry to say that the discourse of peace and democracy in the mouth of people at the forefront of the party, does not reflect the reality.”