Turkey to go ahead with Nov. 1 election despite bombing

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is blaming the ISIS, but he has not ruled out the role of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for the attack. A government spokesman warned media organizations that they could be subject to a “full blackout” if they didn’t comply. The attack which targeted a peace rally in Turkish capital, Ankara, left at least 86 dead by the evening while over a hundred have reportedly been injured.

“We are investigating the explosion and will share our findings with the public as soon as possible”, a Turkish official told AFP, without giving further details.

Around 14,000 people were in the area when the twin bombs exploded just seconds apart, causing buildings to shake and leaving body parts strewn across the road.

It is being reportedly said that two suicide bombers blew themselves up on the square in front of the station.

It says the Syrian people “will never forget the generous positions of the Turkish government and people” for taking refugees and the “repressed”.

Amateur footage filmed moments before the blasts showed smiling activists holding hands and dancing before suddenly falling to the ground as a huge explosion went off behind them.

“Yesterday I sat down and cried”.

Officials fear the death toll could rise. Saturday night, the Turkish government raised the death toll to 95.

Turkey has experienced an upsurge in unrest in recent months, which began after over 30 people were killed in the predominantly Kurdish town of Suruc on July 20 in an attack against pro-HDP activists that was blamed on ISIS.

Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party, said: “The state which gets information about the bird that flies and every flap of its wing, was not able to prevent a massacre in the heart of Ankara“.

Saturday’s bombings intensified tensions in Turkey ahead of snap elections on November 1 and as the government wages a relentless offensive against Kurdish militants.

The US National Security Council condemned the bombings, saying, “The fact that this attack occurred ahead of a planned rally for peace underscores the depravity of those behind it and serves as another reminder of the need to confront shared security challenges in the region”.

President Obama called Erdogan Saturday to offer condolences.

“President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a statement posted online, said, ‘I strongly condemn this heinous attack on our unity and our country’s peace’. Let us all pray together in silence”, the pope said. Before the last election in June, a rally by the pro-Kurdish HDP party was bombed, blamed on Turkish nationalists.

The Polish head of state extended his sympathies to the victims’ families and friends, and wished the almost 250 civilians injured in the assault early recovery.

Thousands of people gathered near the scene of the attack at Ankara’s main railway station, many accusing Erdogan of stirring nationalist sentiment by his pursuit of a military campaign against Kurdish militants, a charge Ankara vehemently rejects.