Ankara explosions leave nearly 100 dead

Erdogan has asserted that Kurdish rebels are a bigger threat to Turkey than the Islamic State group.

The government has shown no sign of stopping its war against the PKK, even after the militant group on Saturday ordered its fighters to halt attacks on Turkish soil.

Saturday’s attacks intensified tensions in Turkey ahead of snap elections on November 1 as the military wages an offensive against Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militants.

The bombings on Saturday targeted a gathering organised in part by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of the country’s leading opposition parties, just weeks before a new round of national elections are scheduled to be held. An Associated Press photographer saw several bodies covered with bloodied flags and banners that demonstrators had brought for the rally.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said the attacks were carried out with TNT explosives fortified with metal ball-bearings.

The government says 95 people died and 245 others were wounded by the twin explosions which occurred seconds apart on Saturday morning.

Small anti-government protests broke out at the scene of the explosions and outside Ankara hospitals as Interior Minister Selami Altinok visited the wounded. Erdogan denies the accusations.

A statement from the government’s crisis coordination center also said Sunday that 160 people hurt in Saturday’s blasts were still hospitalized, with 65 in serious condition.

He warned media organizations they could face a “full blackout” if they did not comply. It was not clear if authorities had blocked access to the websites. The attack was Turkey’s deadliest in recent years.

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for the victims of the massacre which killed dozens of people in Ankara, Turkey the day before. “I pray for that dear country”, the pope said.

But the premier said groups including Islamic State (IS) jihadists, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) were capable of carrying out such an attack.

The government has ridiculed suggestions it could be implicated in the bombings.

On a separate front, the fighting between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels flared anew in July, killing at least 150 police and soldiers and hundreds of PKK rebels since then. It also carried out a limited number of strikes on the group itself.

Erdogan is hoping the ruling party regains its political majority, and critics accuse him of intensifying attacks on Kurds to rally nationalist votes.

His office named 52 of the victims overnight and said autopsies were continuing. It quoted Obama as saying the US “shared Turkey’s grief”.

The Interior Minister said he could not confirm it was a suicide bombing. Anadolu said the two leaders agreed to talk more in the coming days. “All North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies stand united in the fight against the scourge of terrorism”.

A senior security source that Reuters spoke to said the attack bore a striking resemblance to a suicide bombing in July in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border, also blamed on Islamic State.

Police held back the mourners, including the pro-Kurdish party’s co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, insisting that investigators were still working at the site.

In the aftermath of the Ankara attack, the PKK declared a temporary cease-fire.

The HDP, which expanded beyond its Kurdish voter base and drew in mainly left-wing opponents of Erdogan at June elections, said the death toll had risen to 128 and that it had identified all but eight of the bodies. “Operations will continue without a break”, a senior security official said.