Turkish PM condemns Brussels attack

ANKARA

CİHAN photo

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has condemned the terrorist attack which killed at least two dozen civilians in Brussels on March 22 and expressed solidarity with the people of Belgium on behalf of all Turkish people. 

“I curse the attack in Brussels, which has once again shown the global face of terror. I offer my condolences to the government and the people of Belgium and I want to express solidarity on behalf of our people,” Davutoğlu said at a weekly parliamentary address to his party lawmakers on March 22. 

“I invite all of humanity to stand united against global terror and any sort of terrorism,” he added. 

Members of Turkey’s opposition parties also issued messages of condemnation over the attack.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said terror attacks should be condemned irrelevant of where they come from. 

“It does not matter from where and who terror comes from, or where it takes place, it is a situation that we will condemn without any reservations,” said Kılıçdaroğlu. 

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) also “strongly” condemned the attacks in Brussels. 

“We stand in solidarity with the people of Belgium. We share their pain and express the importance of international cooperation in regards to such sorrow and loss,” the HDP said on its Twitter account, hours after the attack. 

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli said the United Nations should lead an initiative to find an international solution to terrorism. 

Meanwhile, Turkish EU Minister Volkan Bozkır and Michael Roth, the German minister of state for Europe, said March 22 that Ankara and European countries should act with solidarity in reacting to the multiple blasts in Brussels.

“This incident, which we wish had not happened, shows us that we must act with solidarity to combat terrorism,” Bozkır said at a joint press conference after a meeting in Ankara previously scheduled to discuss last week’s EU-Turkey agreement on refugees.

Turkey has recently been rocked by a series of terror attacks committed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Ankara and Istanbul which claimed the lives of dozens of civilians.