Ankara Blast Death Toll Reaches 34

Turkey's health minister has said that 34 people are confirmed to have died on Sunday in the country's capital in a terrorist attack which also left 125 wounded.

Thirty-four people were killed in a blast in the center of Ankara on Sunday, said Turkish Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu.

"Thirty people perished at the scene, while four died in hospitals. We suspect there could have been one or two suicide bombers among the casualties," Muezzinoglu told journalists at a press briefing in Ankara.

He added that an additional 125 people were wounded, of whom 19 were in serious condition. The injured were treated at 14 hospitals in Ankara. Nine of them had been or were being operated on as of when the minister addressed the media, Muezzinoglu added.

The car bomb blast at a bus stop near Ankara’s central Kizilay Square was the second this year, after a military convoy was bombed in the capital in February.

In a written statement after the blast, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the bombing as a terror attack and vowed to crack down on terrorist organizations, which he said were trying to use instability in the region to target Turkey.

Turkish authorities have yet to say what militant group was behind the recent Ankara bombing, but the February attack was blamed on Kurdish militias.