A bomb exploded Monday near the offices of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, lightly injuring one person, private NTV television reported. The device, which was in a small plastic bottle, went off at around 0730 GMT, 20 metres (yards) from the building in the central Kizilay district, one and a half hour before a cabinet meeting to be headed by Erdogan. Police blocked access to the blast zone — the entrance to the parking lot of the supreme court of appeals, fearing a second explosion, said NTV. The injured was a court employee, it added. Security guards at Erdogan’s office also rushed to the scene. The blast followed a remote-controlled bomb attack in Istanbul last week near Erdogan’s ruling party headquarters, which wounded 15 police officers and one civilian. In September a powerful bomb rocked the centre of the capital Ankara, killing three people and wounding at least 15 others. A bomb blast in May last year injured eight people near a bus stop in Etiler, an upscale district in Istanbul.
