HDP co-chair blames AKP government for Ankara bombings

ANKARA

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Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş has claimed that the deadly Oct. 10 suicide bomb attacks in Ankara was the result of “cooperation” between the AKP and ISIL.

Speaking in Ankara on Oct. 15, Demirtaş’s remarks came while commenting on the court-imposed ban on media reports about the official investigation into the blast. 

“If there even just a one-in-a-million possibility of the [outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party] PKK being behind this attack, then they [the government] would make it obligatory for the media to report on the incident.

This illustrates that the AKP and ISIL were behind this attack,” he told reporters on Oct. 15 ahead of his party’s Executive Board meeting in Ankara. 

“What is the prime minister trying to hide? Allow everyone to express their thoughts freely. Do they believe they can hide it this way? We are shocked. People already know everything, so let them express their opinion freely,” Demirtaş added. 

The HDP co-chair also blasted the ruling to ban “criticism” of the investigation, questioning how such criticism could influence the investigation. 

On Oct. 14, an Ankara court issued a sweeping media ban including “all kinds of news, interviews, criticism and similar publications in print, visual, social media and all kinds of media on the Internet” covering the suicide blast investigation. All media outlets in the country have officially been notified of the ruling, which brings in one of Turkey’s most draconian recent media bans and is effective immediately.