Turkey blames Kurdish militants for Istanbul car bombing
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's office blamed Kurdish militants for a car bombing that killed 11 people in central Istanbul, while a second bomb on June 8 killed five people in the largely Kurdish southeast.
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Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, meanwhile, said that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), blamed for June 7's attack in Istanbul, had recently sought to revive peace talks and offered to lay down their arms.
A ceasefire with the PKK collapsed almost a year ago, setting off the worst violence the country has seen in two decades. Yildirim, in comments broadcast live by TRT television, said Turkey would not negotiate to end the violence.
The car bomb on June 7 ripped through a police bus during the morning rush hour in Istanbul, killing six police officers and five civilians near the main tourist district, a major university and the mayor's office.
On June 8, the bomb targeted a police station in the southeastern town of Midyat, killing three civilians and two police officers and wounding more than 30 others.
The province borders Syria in a region where Kurdish militants have waged a three-decade insurgency.
"All indicators and signs regarding the attack in Istanbul yesterday point to the separatist terror organization," Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told a news conference, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
There has been no claim of responsibility from Kurdish militants.
They have carried out similar attacks in Turkey's major cities in the recent past as violence has spiraled since the ceasefire with the PKK collapsed almost a year ago.
