Istanbul – Party officials on Sunday, said that offices belonging to Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have been attacked.
According to the party officials the attack occurred a day after a car bomb that killed 14 off-duty Turkish soldiers was blamed on Kurdish militants.
Vandals pelted HDP offices in Istanbul and Ankara with rocks overnight.
In Ankara’s Yenimahalle district, a mob of 20 to 30 people ransacked a party bureau, the office furniture was moved outside and set on fire.
There were calls on social media for HDP lawmakers and party officials to be killed.
In an interview with dpa, the German-Turkish HDP lawmaker Ziya Pir warned of “pogrom atmosphere’’ in the country.
Mustafa Yeneroglu, chairman of the human rights committee in parliament and a member of the ruling AKP party, wrote on Twitter that member of the public should not mete out “vigilante justice’’ for Saturday’s attack.
A car bomb killed 14 troops and injured 55 others who were on a bus in the central Turkish province of Kayseri, Agency report.
The soldiers had been on a shopping excursion in Kayseri province as part of their off-duty privileges when the car parked next to the bus reportedly exploded.
All the indications pointed to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as being behind the attack, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told Turkish media.
According to the agency report,15 people have been arrested in connection with the bombing.
The HDP condemned the blast “in the strongest possible terms.’’
The party has been under increasing pressure from the government, which accuses it of links to terrorism charges the pro-Kurdish movement strongly denies.
Peace talks and a ceasefire between the state and the main Kurdish militia, the PKK, collapsed last year, setting off a new round of violence and crackdown on Kurdish groups.
Kurds make up about 15 per cent of Turkey’s population and often denounce what they see as systemic discrimination by the state.
The conflict has been ongoing for more than three decades.