Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 11
Trend:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cancelled his visit to Kazakhstan due to the terrorist attack in Istanbul, Anadolu Agency reported.
The visit was scheduled for Dec. 11-12.
Two bombs exploded less than a minute apart at about 11 p.m. (GMT +3 hours), killing 29 people and wounding 166 outside a soccer stadium in Istanbul on Dec. 10 night, in a coordinated attack on police shortly after a match between two of Turkey's top teams.
First a car bomb exploded outside the Vodafone Arena, home to Istanbul's Besiktas soccer team, leaving flaming wreckage on the street. Forty-five seconds later, a suspect wearing explosives detonated them while surrounded by police in an adjacent park, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told a news conference.
President Erdogan described the blasts as a terrorist attack on police and civilians. He said the aim of the bombings, two hours after the end of a match attended by thousands of people, had been to cause the maximum number of casualties.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 10 people had been detained based on evidence from the detonated vehicle, but gave no indication of who the authorities thought might be behind the attack.