Turkey remembers PKK attack victims in Beşiktaş one year on

ISTANBUL

Turkish football giants Beşiktaş paid tribute on Dec. 10 to the 46 people killed in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attack near the team’s stadium, starting a day of commemorations to mark the first anniversary of the attacks.

“The pain is as raw as the first day,” Beşiktaş Deputy Chair Ahmet Nur Çebi said in the commemoration ceremony, adding that “the pain of the families of martyrs is our pain.”

“We won’t forget the families or neglect them,” Çebi also said.

On Dec. 10, 2016, 39 police officers and seven civilians were killed while 166 others were wounded when two car bombs exploded within seconds of each other in the heart of Istanbul.

Most of the victims died when one bomb exploded near a group of police officers who had been deployed near the stadium, where Beşiktaş had just played fellow Turkish club Bursaspor.  

Less than a minute later a suicide bomber blew himself up near a group of police officers on the other side of the stadium.
  Saying Beşiktaş “stands with the state, government and the people” in the struggle against terror, Çebi said “the terrorists who want to intimidate Turkey will never be successful.” 

“These incidents only bring our people closer together. We need to make these terrorists feel they will never reach their aims,” he added. 

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu also commemorated the victims of the PKK attack, adding that Turkish security forces are carrying out extensive efforts to apprehend the two militants who ordered the bombing.