Turks hit by grief and anger after fatal blasts
Ankara bomb attacks on pro-Kurdish rally leave 95 dead
THOUSANDS of people, many chanting anti-government slogans, gathered in central Ankara yesterday near the scene of bomb blasts which killed at least 95 people, mourning the victims of the most deadly attack of its kind on Turkish soil.
Two suspected suicide bombers hit a rally of pro-Kurdish and labour activists near Ankara’s main train station on Saturday, three weeks before an election, shocking a nation beset by conflict between the state and Kurdish militants.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, a major presence at Saturday’s march, said police attacked its leaders and members as they tried to leave carnations earlier at the scene. Some were hurt in the mêlée, it said.
“Murderer (President Tayyip) Erdogan”, “murderer police”, the crowd chanted in Sihhiye Square as riot police backed by watercannon vehicles blocked a main highway leading to the district where parliament and government buildings are located.
The government denies any suggestion of involvement. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, exposing a mosaic of domestic political perils, said Islamic State, Kurdish militant factions or far-leftist radicals could have carried out the bombing.
Some have suggested militant nationalists opposed to any accommodation with Kurds seeking greater minority rights could have been responsible.
Turkish investigators worked yesterday to identify the perpetrators and victims of the attack.
Newspaper headlines reflected the mixture of grief and anger.
“We are in mourning for peace,” said the front-page headline in the secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper as three days of national mourning declared by the prime minister got under way. “Scum launch attack in Ankara,” said the Haberturk newspaper. “The goal is to divide the nation,” said the pro-government Star.
One of the bombers had been identified as a male aged between 25 and 30 after bodies at the scene and fingerprints were analysed, the pro-government Yeni Safak said.
There had been no claim of responsibility for the attack, which came as external threats mount for Nato member Turkey, with increased fighting across its border with Syria and incursions by Russian warplanes on its airspace over the past week.
Davutoglu’s office named 52 of the victims overnight. It said 246 wounded people were still being treated in hospital, 48 of them in intensive care.
“The necessary work is being conducted to identify those behind the attack and quickly bring them to justice,” a statement said.
Relatives and friends of the casualties waited anxiously yesterday morning outside the hospitals where the wounded were being treated.
The blasts happened seconds apart as pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party activists, leftists, labour unions and other civic groups gathered to protest over the deaths of hundreds since conflict resumed between security forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the mainly Kurdish south-east.
Hours after the bombing, the PKK ordered its fighters to halt operations in Turkey, saying it would avoid acts that could hinder a “fair and just election” on November 1.