Following a car bomb attack in central Turkey on Saturday, Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on Sunday said tens of suicide bombers are prevented but that occasionally a few are missed.
Talking to journalists in Kahramanmaraş, Yıldırım said the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is resorting to suicide bombings because it has lost the ability to attack systematically. However, Yıldırım also noted that the threat should not be underestimated.
“Tens of suicide bombers are prevented, but from time to time one or two are missed,” Yıldırım commented after Turkey was hit by two bomb attacks on consecutive Saturdays. Last week’s attacks in İstanbul’s Beşiktaş’s district killed 44 and injured 166. Yesterday’s car bomb attack in Kayseri claimed 14 lives as of Sunday.
Yıldırım’s predecessor, former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had said on Oct. 12, 2015 that the government keeps a list of potential suicide bombers but cannot take action and arrest them before they are engaged in an attack.
In the wake of the Kayseri attack on Saturday, Yıldırım had said the aim of the terror attacks was to prevent the launch of high-speed trains and the building of highways and modern airports in the country.
Yıldırım, who was speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş several hours after the Kayseri attack, said: “These attacks may delay our becoming connected with the high-speed train, but they cannot prevent us from doing so. They may delay [construction of] modern airports, but they can’t prevent this. They cannot prevent us from building highways.”