Turkish tanks and artillery have bombarded Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq over the past 48 hours, killing almost 200 of its fighters in retaliation for a suicide bombing in Istanbul, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says.
An Islamic State suicide bomber, who entered Turkey as a Syrian refugee, blew himself up among groups of tourists in the historic centre of Istanbul on Tuesday, killing 10 Germans and seriously wounding several other foreigners.
Turkey, a NATO member and part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, would also carry out air strikes against the radical Sunni militants if necessary and would not yield until they were flushed from its borders, Davutoglu said on Thursday.
"After the incident on Tuesday close to 500 artillery and tank shells were fired on Daesh (IS) positions in Syria and Iraq," he told a conference of Turkish ambassadors in the capital Ankara, using an Arabic name for Islamic State.
"Close to 200 Daesh members including so-called regional leaders were neutralised in the last 48 hours. After this, every threat directed at Turkey will be punished in kind."
Meanwhile, Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday said a Russian man arrested after the deadly Istanbul bombing was suspected of having links to IS and that such extremists "feel comfortable" in Turkey.
Turkish police arrested three Russians after the attack.
One of the Russians arrested was Aidar Suleimanov, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
She said Suleimanov, born in 1984, was suspected of being linked to IS, while Russian news agencies quoted an unnamed Russian security source as saying he was suspected of helping send new recruits from Russia to the militant group.
"This is precisely a case where extremists accused of terrorist activity in Russia feel comfortable living for so many years in certain foreign states," Zakharova told a weekly news briefing.
"These terrorists are confident of full safety and that they can not be reached by Russian justice."
She went on to criticise Turkey's attitude towards suspected militants, saying: "The country's authorities have often declined to cooperate, including with the Russian Federation ... even when all personal data have been identified and all necessary evidence gathered and submitted properly."
