ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Binali Yildirim, the Turkish transport minister who is to become the next prime minister, was in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir to visit families of 16 people who were killed in a bomb attack last week.

After taking part in the funerals of victims, Yildirim announced he would return by the end of this month with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Three people were killed and 45 wounded in a bomb attack on a police shuttle in the Baglar neighborhood of central Diyarbakir on May 17.

"Those who want to divide our land will be fiercely repulsed, we will do whatever necessary against them," Yildirim said among a crowd of mourners at a cemetery in Diyarbakir, the city that is the capital of Turkey’s southeastern Kurdish regions.  

Turkish attacks and clashes between troops and the Kurdistan Workers Party have become commonplace  since a crackdown by Ankara on the PKK in July lasts year.

Yildirim is set to become the third chairman of the ruling AKP party and the 27th prime minister at a ceremony Sunday.