At least 50 people were killed and 73 others wounded, in a blast at a wedding ceremony late on Aug. 20 in southeastern Turkey, the Gaziantep Governor’s Office has said, with the president implying that the perpetrator was likely the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The terror attack took place in the Beybahçe neighborhood of the Şahinbey district of Gaziantep province, according to a statement by the governor’s office. After its initial inspections at the scene, police said they have found a torn suicide bomb vest.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the attack in a statement, saying that ISIL was the “likely perpetrator.”
“Those, who cannot overcome Turkey and try to provoke people by abusing ethnic and sectarian sensitiveness, will not prevail,” he said.
“There is no difference between the PKK [Kurdistan Worker’s Party] which martyred 70 security personnel last month, the FETÖ [Fetullahist Terror Organization] as an actor in the July 15 coup bid claiming 240 people and the possible [perpetrator] of the Gaziantep terror attack, Daesh,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.
Erdoğan said the aim of attacks like Gaziantep was to sow division between different groups in Turkey such as Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen and “spread incitement along ethnic and religious lines.”
The attack occurred on the same day that Erdoğan attended a security meeting at the Huber Mansion in Istanbul with Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar and several other ministers.
The wedding took place on a street, a common practice in southern Turkey, especially during the summer.
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said in a written statement that “Our pain is very big. However, everyone should make sure that our unity will repel all evil external or domestic attacks.”
The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is focused on the Kurdish issue, said in a statement that the wedding was for one of its members, and women and children had been among those killed.
Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Şamil Tayyar also said the initial data pointed to ISIL as the suspect.
In October last year, ISIL suicide bombers killed at least 100 people, including large numbers of members of the HDP, Republican People’s Party (CHP) and left-wing parties, when they attacked a peace rally outside Ankara’s main train station in the country’s largest terror attack ever.
Violence flared again this week in the southeast and east, with the PKK killing at least 12 people in separate attacks, mostly police and soldiers.