Source: Aljazeera

At least 27 people have been killed and 125 more wounded after a strong explosion struck the Turkish capital, Ankara, officials say.

A bomb-laden car exploded on Sunday evening in the centrally located Kizilay neighbourhood, near a major transport hub, private broadcaster NTV reported.

Witnesses said the blast set vehicles on fire and heavily damaged several buses. Police cordoned off the area shortly after the explosion.

“As of now there has been no claim of responsibility,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Istanbul, said.

“But this is a real concern for Turkey. It happened in the capital and this is the third explosion to have happened there” since October.

Fadi Hakura, a Turkey expert and associate fellow at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera that the insecurity was becoming a new normal in the country.

“Insecurity and instability now is the new dynamic in Turkish politics and in the society,” Hakura said.

“Both of the last two attacks happened before the summit between the EU and Turkey, so I suspect that the group that carried out these attacks was seeking maximum publicity not just in Turkey but in the outside world to make it clear that Turkey is insecure and unstable place.”

Sunday’s attack comes just three weeks after a suicide car bombing in the capital targeted buses carrying military personnel, killing 29 people.

“We know how and when we will respond,” Ahmed Davutoglu, Turkey’s prime minister, told Al Jazeera after the attack. “Definitely, those who made this attack against our people, will pay the price, but how and when – we will decide – and when it happens, everybody will see that Turkey can respond [to] any challenges, any attack, against it.”

A Kurdish armed group, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), which is an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), claimed responsibility for that attack. TAK says it split from the PKK.