Turkish Press Review

ISTANBUL (AA) – Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Almost all Thursday’s papers reported on a car bombing outside a police station in Midyat, a town in the southeastern province of Mardin, which killed three civilians and martyred two police officers as well as injuring dozens on Wednesday.

"Martyrs of Midyat," was VATAN's headline, which reported that the slain officers were on duty at the entrance of the police station when the explosion hit at around 11 a.m. local time (0900GMT).

According to the daily, one of the murdered police officers was a mother of one while the other was six months pregnant.

HABERTURK ran the headline: "Martyred in the womb," referring to the death of pregnant police officer, Serife Ozden Kalamis and her unborn baby.

The paper also reports that Ozden Kalamis had been a close protection officer to former Turkish president Abdullah Gul.

Papers also reported on the latest developments on a separate car-bomb attack in Istanbul’s Beyazit district which targeted a police bus on Tuesday, martyring seven police officers and killing four civilians.

"Here are the traitor PKK bombers," was SABAH's front-page headline on a story which ran alongside a grainy image of two people reportedly linked to the attack.

The paper’s story claims that two terrorists, including a woman, carried out the attack in Beyazit's Vezneciler area on the city's European side.

According to the daily, the perpetrators left a rented car in a parking area of Istanbul's Mercan neighborhood in Fatih district on June 5. They later took the car at 6.42 a.m. (0342GMT), two hours before the attack.

Apart from killing 11 people, the deadly attack left 36 people wounded and damaged nearby shops, vehicles and hotels.

"Track of the bombers in Lice," HURRIYET wrote, reporting that Turkish security forces found strong clues that the devices used in both the Vezneciler and Midyat attacks came from a depot in the Lice district of the southeastern Diyarbakir province.

Turkey’s prime minister on Wednesday named the PKK terror group as being responsible for the Istanbul attack.

“The murderer is the PKK terrorist organization,” Binali Yildirim said in response to journalists’ questions while visiting survivors in hospital: “We aren’t surprised. However, the circle tightens around the PKK.”

PKK – listed as a terrorist organization also by the U.S. and EU – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015. Since then, around 500 security personnel have been martyred and more than 4,900 PKK terrorists killed.

In other news, financial newspaper DUNYA reported the chances that Hillary Clinton will become the first female president of the U.S. are increasing day-by-day.

According to the paper, Clinton – who claimed the Democratic Party nomination – secured her place in American history as the first woman to become one of the two major parties’ presidential candidate.