Pro-Kurdish HDP leader condemns Istanbul attack

ANKARA, Turkey (K24) – On Tuesday, the co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, Selahattin Demirtas, condemned a suspected Islamic State (IS) attack in Istanbul that claimed 10 lives, mostly German tourists, and wounded 15 others.

Speaking to his party's weekly gathering at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, Demirtas promised not to give up until "those responsible" for the attack were apprehended.

Demirtas' party and its supporters were the targets of at least three Islamic State attacks last year.

A twin suicide bombing in central Ankara on October 10, 2015, killed 102 people in the single biggest terror attack committed in Turkey. The victims included two HDP politicians running for parliament during the November 1 general elections.

An earlier suicide attack, targeting a Kurdish and Turkish leftist activist group in the town of Suruc on Turkey's border with Syria on July 20, killed 33 and wounded more than 100 young people.

The victims were preparing to go to the war-devastated Syrian-Kurdish town of Kobani and help rebuild it. Kobani was almost destroyed after months of fighting between the IS and the Kurdish People Protection Units (YPG) backed by the United States warplanes.

On June 5, 2015, in the de-facto Kurdish capital of Diyarbakir, a bomb went off amid hundreds of people during an electoral rally of the HDP and killed four people, injuring over 100. The bombing took place minutes before Demirtas was expected to make a speech.

A separate attack in late 2015 that killed one person and injured two others in a major international Istanbul airport on December 2013 was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) splinter group that threatened the Turkish government with more attacks on airports and tourist sites.

(Adnan Gerger contributed to this report from Ankara)