Turkey strongly condemns the abhorrent terror attack that took place yesterday (17 June 2007) in Kabul, the capital of brotherly Afghanistan. According to initial data, the attack caused the death of 35 to 40 people, including some civilians and injured about 50 persons.

These recently increased terrorist attacks which also target the civilians, aim at damaging the security and stability of the country. These developments in Afghanistan also constitute an additional threat to the security and stability in the region.

In all our contacts at multilateral, regional and bilateral levels, we stress in the strongest terms that terrorism, whatever cause, pretext and claim it might allege, cannot have any justification and it should be condemned unreservedly under all circumstances. Turkey considers terrorism as a major violation of the most fundamental human right, i.e. the right to life.

Turkey, which continues with its contributions towards the establishment of security and stability in Afghanistan with determination, would once again like to underline its solidarity with the brotherly people and Government of Afghanistan.

We wish condolences to the brotherly people of Afghanistan and speedy recovery to the injured.