TURKEY: PRIME MINISTER ERDOGAN SAYS ISTANBUL SUICIDE BOMBERS WERE TURKISH, PROTESTS TAKE PLACE AGAINST VIOLENCE.

Record ID: 217804

  • Title: TURKEY: PRIME MINISTER ERDOGAN SAYS ISTANBUL SUICIDE BOMBERS WERE TURKISH, PROTESTS TAKE PLACE AGAINST VIOLENCE.
  • Date: 22nd November 2003
  • Summary: (W4) ISTANBUL, TURKEY (NOVEMBER 22, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GVV: FUNERAL PROCESSION FOR TWO POLICEMEN KILLED IN THURSDAY'S BLASTS, MOURNERS CARRYING COFFINS DRAPED IN TURKISH FLAGS 0.12 2. MCU: TAYYIP ERDOGAN, TURKISH PRIME MINISTER BOWING 0.18 3. MCU: SOLDIERS SALUTING COFFINS 0.24 4. MCU: FAMILY MEMBERS CRYING 0.30 5
  • Embargoed: 7th December 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ISTANBUL, TURKEY
  • Country: Turkey
  • Reuters ID: LVA8C5D6VGAEMOK7JYE2FQZ593ZD
  • Story Text: PM says bombers were Turks as victims are buried and
    thousands gather to protest against violence.



    Four suicide bombers who killed more than 50
    people in Istanbul over the past week were Turkish
    citizens, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday
    (November 22), as some of the victims of the bombings were
    buried.

    Speaking at the funeral of two police officers killed
    in attacks on Thursday, Erdogan said it was a matter of
    shame for Turkey that its own citizens were responsible.

    "Among our 57 citizens (killed at the blasts) there are
    unfortunately four of them who are the terrorists. "
    Groups linked to al Qaeda have claimed responsibility
    for two attacks on synagogues last Saturday that killed 25
    people and two further bombings on the British consulate
    and HSBC bank on Thursday in which at least 27 people died.

    Erdogan repeated that authorities believe the Turkish
    bombers had links with foreign groups.

    The Hurriyet newspaper reported that anti-terrorist
    police had detained 18 people in a sweep of three Istanbul
    districts and that all police leave had been cancelled.

    Police were not immediately available to comment on the
    report.

    Authorities said on Friday several people had been
    arrested over Thursday's two blasts but gave no further
    details.

    A statement purporting to come from a unit of Osama bin
    Laden's al Qaeda network said it carried out the twin
    str
    ikes on the British consulate and the London-based HSBC
    bank, which killed at least 27 people and wounded more than
    400.

    Five days earlier 25 people were killed in similar
    suicide attacks on two synagogues.

    Despite Sabbath, Istanbul's synagogues were closed on
    Saturday and, according to Silvio Ovadya, spokesman for
    Turkey's Jewish community, will remain closed until early
    next week "for security reasons".

    There were no public prayers in any of Istanbul's 18
    synagogues and police cars kept watch at the hour when the
    first bombs exploded a week earlier.

    Hundreds of heavily armed police guarded Istanbul's
    main Taksim square as crowds gathered for a peace protest,
    one of many planned in major cities to show Turkey's
    revulsion at the blasts whose victims included Muslims,
    Jews and Christians.

    All police leave in Istanbul had been cancelled after
    the worst week of peacetime violence in Turkey's modern
    history.





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