Turkey’s nationalist opposition leader asks for meeting with PM after terrorist attack

ANKARA

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu (L), REUTERS Photo. Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli, AA Photo.

Turkey’s nationalist opposition leader has requested a meeting with the prime minister after a suicide car bomb attack killed at least 37 people in Ankara on March 13.

Sources from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s office told the state-run Anadolu Agency on March 14 that Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli asked for an appointment. Davutoğlu and Bahçeli are scheduled to meet at the prime minister’s office at 4 p.m., the sources said.

Bahçeli voiced resolve against terrorist acts, while also urging “a thorough analysis” of the situation because the March 13 attack came just weeks after a similar attack in the capital.

In a written statement released late on March 13, Bahçeli expressed confidence that light would be shed on the perpetrators and instigators of the attack, while also expressing his wish that the process not be delayed.

“The government should not allow any weakness and negligence on this issue. Turkey’s national security is signaling a red alarm because our precious nation is openly under attack and is surrounded in a compact and categorical circle of enmity,” Bahçeli said.

“The occurrence of a new attack three weeks after the terror attack on Feb. 17 should be thoroughly interpreted and the desires and goals behind it should be deeply analyzed,” he said.

A female member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was one of two suspected perpetrators of the attack, security officials told Reuters news agency on March 14.

Evidence has been obtained that one of the bombers was a female member of the PKK who joined the militant group in 2013, the security officials told Reuters. She was born in 1992 and is from the eastern Turkish province of Kars, they said. 

The government has said it expects to officially identify the organization behind the attack later on March 14.

The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility for the previous car bombing, just a few blocks away, on Feb. 17. TAK says it has split from the PKK, although experts who study Kurdish militants say the two organizations are affiliated.