ANKARA

Three of Turkey’s parliamentary parties released a joint statement on Sunday’s car bomb attack in Ankara on Tuesday.

The declaration signed by the Justice and Development (AK) Party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) described the attack, which killed 37, as an attempt to “create weariness and pessimism and to harm the sense of shared future.”

The blast in Kizilay, a central transport hub in the capital with a major metro station and dozens of bus stops, was the third to hit the city in the last five months.

“Those who were killed were our sons and their sorrow is ours as much as their families, relatives and loved ones,” the statement, signed by AK Party Acting Chairman Naci Bostanci, CHP Acting Chairman Levent Gok and the MHP’s Acting Chairman Oktay Vural, said.

“There were historical aims behind this attack that targeted unity of Turkish people and Turkey’s integrity.

“Terror with its bloody attacks aims to create weariness and pessimism and to harm the sense of shared future.

“It is a source of consolation to see Turkey’s people, who sealed its destiny through determination and will and overcame every problem through solidarity, resolution and courage in our long history, foiled the aim of terror.”

It added that “everybody and every institution share responsibility to establish peace and tranquility in our country”.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party was the only parliamentary party not to sign the declaration.