President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asserted Wednesday that the option of not approving the death penalty law after it was passed by the Turkish parliament did not exist for him, as he vowed that the PKK terrorists who killed the wife and infant of a Turkish soldier in the country's southeast "will pay for what they have done."
Stressing that the attack shows how dishonorable the PKK terror group is, Erdoğan said no one had the right to divide the country or disrupt its people's peace.
"We will not let this or the perpetrators of this massacre go," he said, adding that counterterror operations will continue nonstop, in full force.
Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also condemned the terror attack, vowing to "hold [those] baby killers to account. We will make life unbearable for them."
"We will make their caves collapse around them," the minister said on his official Twitter account.
Meanwhile Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu accused "those who supported PKK terrorists in Europe" for the attack in Hakkari.
"Everybody, each country and institution linking arms with the PKK was a partner to this massacre yesterday, and so are they today," he said.
"The PKK, their biggest partner, are in the throes of death today. They want to save their bloody partners today, but they will not succeed," he vowed, as his tears turned into anger.
"The PKK was a baby-killer 40 years ago. From its leader, to its founder, from the very top to the bottom, all PKK terrorists were baby-killers yesterday, exactly as they are today," he concluded.
Nurcan Karakaya, the wife of a Turkish solder, and her 11-month-old baby boy Bedirhan Mustafa Karakaya were martyred on Tuesday when a roadside bomb planted by PKK terrorists exploded as they moved through the Yüksekova district.
The coffins of the mother and the baby boy wrapped in Turkish flags were taken by helicopter to Hakkari airport after a military ceremony at the Mountain and Commando Brigade Command in Hakkari.
Local government officials along with security personnel and political figures attended the ceremony sending off the coffins.
The mother died on the spot, while the 11-month-old succumbed to his wounds at the Yüksekova Public Hospital.
The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the death of some 40,000 people in its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey.