ISTANBUL (AP) — A Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility for a suicide car-bomb attack in the Turkish capital which killed 37 people.

In a statement posted Thursday on its website, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons said the attack in Ankara was in response to Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in the southeast.

The Turkey-based group is considered an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and has carried out several attacks in the past including one in Ankara in February that killed 28 people.

More than 200 people have died in five suicide bombings in Turkey since July that were blamed either on the Kurdish rebels or IS.