Mehmet Muezzinoglu, the Turkish health minister, told at a press conference that 86 people had been killed and 186 wounded, 28 of whom were in intensive care.
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“I strongly condemn this heinous attack on our unity and our country’s peace”, Mr Erdogan said in a statement posted on the presidency’s website.
Turkey has avoided conflict with ISIS, perhaps in exchange for the release earlier this year of dozens of Turkish hostages seized in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Police later cordoned off the area.
No groups have yet taken responsibility for the attack.
TV footage from Turkey’s Dogan news agency showed protestors fanned out on the street near the train station, chanting and performing a traditional dance with their hands locked, when a large explosion hit behind them.
The detonations were so powerful that they shattered the thick windows of the train station, and in a matter of seconds hundreds of people, including the EFE correspondent, were splattered with the remains of human bodies.
Mr Demirtas said he blamed a “mafia state” in the country for the twin explosion.
With global concern growing over instability in the key North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini urged Turkey to “stand united against terrorists”.
His comment came after the Foreign Ministry condemned the incident. People planning to participate in a peaceful march around Ankara railway station were targeted by a bomb attack: many are dead and injured.
The area was to have hosted a peace rally organised by leftist groups later in the day, including the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
‘We are faced with a murderous state’. “It was at a rally to protest the war by the Turkish state and Kurdish separatists”. A few 150 police and soldiers and hundreds of rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have been killed since July when the conflict flared anew.
According to media reports this week, the PKK was preparing to declare a ceasefire next week ahead of the election.
But he added that the “greatest supporters of terrorism are those who apply double standards in face of terrorism”, taking a swipe at the HDP without naming the pro-Kurdish party, which the president has repeatedly accused of being in cahoots with the PKK.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for repeat elections on November. 1 after political parties failed to agree on forming a coalition.
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The office of Davutoglu said that he had cancelled election campaigning for the next three days.
