Death toll in Istanbul bombings rises to 17

Turkey's highest court on Monday began considering whether to shut down the governing party for Islamist activities against a background of tension following two bomb attacks in Istanbul.

The blasts killed 17 people and wounded more than 150 people on Sunday just hours before the Constitutional Court judges were set to look at the case. Five of the dead were children, Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said.

"We have been fighting terror for 30 to 35 years. This fight will continue until we win it," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told residents at the site of the blasts in a working-class neighbourhood on the European side of Istanbul.

"Today is a day for unity," Erdogan said.

In the emotionally charged aftermath of the bombings, the Constitutional Court began examining whether the AK Party had engaged in Islamist activities and should be closed. The party denies the charges and a ruling is expected in early August.

The court case is linked to a long-running power struggle between Turkey's secularist establishment and the Islamist-rooted AK Party, which are at odds over the direction of the officially secular but predominantly Muslim country.

"Our problem is not whether or not the AK Party will be closed. Our problem at the moment is to keep our unity so our country will go in a different direction," Erdogan said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bomb attacks, the deadliest in Turkey since 2003. But police were increasingly looking at the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Armed forces chief General Yasar Buyukanit said in a statement: "The attacks, which were staged in a crowded street at a busy hour and without discriminating between men and women, young, old and children, showed once again the gory face, ruthlessness and despair of terrorism."

Governor Guler said there were signs of links the separatist group but pro-PKK websites reported it as condemning the attacks and denying any involvement.

Newspapers said three people had been detained.

BODIES STREWN ACROSS STREET

The site was cordoned off on Monday. The AK Party is popular in the area and Erdogan received a warm welcome from residents.

Kurdish separatists, far-left groups and Islamist militants have all carried out bombings in Istanbul in the past.

The PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union, has waged a campaign for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey since 1984. But it usually does not target civilians.

"We know the killers," Sabah newspaper said in a headline above a picture of bodies strewn across a busy pedestrian area in Gungoren, near Istanbul's main international airport, where two bombs, minutes apart, tore through the crowds.

Officials said a first blast brought people into the streets and a larger bomb hidden in a rubbish bin exploded 10 minutes later just 50 metres (yards) away.

Several local residents blamed the separatists.

"Who is behind it? Of course it's the PKK. This has nothing to do with politics, this is all about the PKK," Orhan Balci, a 38-year-old textile businessman told Reuters.

"After the (Turkish military) bombings in northern Iraq they are in their death throes and they are targeting the people. We shouldn't back down, we should fight back, this is pure terrorism," Balci said.

The Istanbul attacks followed the bombing by Turkish jets of suspected PKK positions in northern Iraq, used by guerrillas as a base from which to carry out strikes on Turkish territory.

Financial markets in a country seeking European Union membership weakened slightly on the news as well as on concerns over the court case against the AK Party but later recovered.

"With 47 percent of the vote the (AK Party) government cannot be easily closed down," said Huseyin Bagci, a politics professor at Ankara's Middle East Technical University.

"The government is also realising that they made some strategic mistakes, so now the question is how to retreat from this situation to a normal democratic life."