Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday night vowed to bring “terrorism to its knees” following the car bombing attack in Ankara.
In a statement quoted by AP, Erdogan said Turkey would use its right to self-defense to prevent future attacks.
“Our people should not worry, the struggle against terrorism will for certain end in success and terrorism will be brought to its knees,” he stated.
At least 34 people were killed in the suicide car bomb attack near bus stops in the heart of Turkey’s capital. Around 125 others were wounded.
Two of the dead are believed to be the assailants.
A senior government official told AP that police suspect that Kurdish militants carried out the attack, which occurred on Ankara’s main boulevard, close to ministries.
At least one of the bombers was a woman, he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity on the grounds that the investigation was ongoing.
The attack came just three weeks after a suicide car bombing in the capital targeted buses carrying military personnel, killing 29 people. A Kurdish militant group which is an offshoot of an outlawed rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, claimed responsibility for the February 17 attack, noted AP.
Hours after the attack, a Turkish court ordered a ban on access to Facebook and Twitter, after images from the bombing were shared on the social media platforms.
This would not be the first time that social media sites have been blocked in Turkey, as the country last year blocked access to Twitter over the sharing of photographs of a prosecutor being held at gunpoint by far-left militants.