Two assailants detonated a bomb outside a government building in Turkey on Sunday, just hours before Parliament was set to reopen after a three-month summer hiatus, Turkish Internal Affairs Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a statement Sunday.
In what Turkish officials are describing as a terrorist attack, the two assailants arrived in a “light commercial vehicle” outside the building in Ankara and carried out the bomb attack.
One assailant died by suicide during the explosion, and the other assailant “was neutralized” in what The Associated Press described as a shoot-out with police.
“At around 09.30, 2 terrorists who came with a light commercial vehicle in front of the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our Ministry of Internal Affairs, carried out a bomb attack,” Yerlikaya said in a statement. “One of the terrorists blew himself up and the other terrorist was neutralized.”
Yerlikaya said two police officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries during the fire. In a subsequent statement, Yerlikaya identified the officers as Alim Reis Demirel and Erkan Karataş and said their recovery was continuing.
Turkish Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç announced an investigation into the terrorist attack.
"Regarding the treacherous attack #Ankara our Chief Public Prosecutor's Office immediately launched a judicial investigation. The investigation will be carried out extensively in all its aspects under the coordination of the Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor assigned to the incident,” he said in the statement.