ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - More than 43 people were killed and scores injured as two deadly explosions hit the Turkish city of Reyhanli near the Syrian border on Saturday.
The bombs went off outside the town hall and a post office.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said that those responsible had possible links to the Syrian regime.
"We have to a great extent completed our work toward identifying the assailants," he told reporters. "We have established that the organization and assailants have links to the pro-regime intelligence organization."
Arinc also rejected that Syrian opposition groups or refugees based inside Turkey had anything to do with the twin explosions.
“The aim behind this explosion is to cut the trust between the Syrian opposition, Syrian refugees and the people of Hattay region where they are settled,”
But Syrian information minister said at a press conference early Sunday that Damascus was not behind the bombings, alleging that “Turkey itself was indirectly responsible for the attack.”
Reyhanli is situated on the Turkey-Syria border and in the past two years has been a major crossing point for Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their country.
The attacks came just three days after fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) began a major withdrawal from Turkish territories as part of a peace plan with Ankara.
PKK spokesman Ahmet Deniz told Rudaw that his party condemned the attack, and vowed it would not affect their peace agreement with Turkey.
“We are against this kind of attack against civilians,” Deniz said. “But we will also wait to see who was really behind it.”
“This attack would not affect the peace process between us and the Turkish government.”
Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu who is in Germany on an official visit, warned that similar attacks might recur, and that it was important to protect the area.
“Given what is going on in Syria at the moment, it is likely that attacks, like that at Reyhan, might reoccur,” he said. “But what is important is to protect Turkish security.”
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of Turkey’s main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), criticized his country’s foreign and domestic policies, saying: “With all the authority it has, the government should tell us details of this explosion as quickly as possible.”
“In order to regain trust, the government should reevaluate its foreign and domestic policies,” he added.
Devlet Bahceli, who heads the ultra-nationalist Peoples Nationalist Movement (MHP), attacked Erdogan’s “belligerent” policy towards Syria, saying that was the reason behind the deadly blast.
The attack brought immediate condemnation from Western countries. US Secretary of State John Kerry told the media, "This awful news strikes an especially personal note for all of us, given how closely we work in partnership with Turkey."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague also called the explosion in Reyhanli “appalling.”
"My thoughts are with family & friends of the victims. We stand with the people of Turkey,” he wrote on Twitter.
