Turkey Mourns After Suicide Bombing Strikes Wedding Party

People gather for the funeral of victims of last night's attack on a wedding party that left 50 dead in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border on Aug. 21, 2016. (Ilyas Akengin/AFP/Getty Images)

Funerals are being held in Turkey today after the bombing of a Kurdish wedding party on Saturday. More than 50 people were killed, many of them children, and officials say the suicide bomber himself was between 12 and 14 years old.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack was an attempt by ISIS to destabilize the nation by exploiting ethnic and religious tensions. Here & Now‘s Meghna Chakrabarti speaks with Gonul Tol, an expert on Turkish politics.

Guest

Gonul Tol, founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies. She tweets @gonultol.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.

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