Officials said 248 people were hurt, 48 of them seriously.
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He said on Saturday the attack was part of the same campaign as the bombing of an HDP rally in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on the eve of June elections and a suicide bombing blamed on Islamic State in Suruc near the Syrian border in July, which killed 33 mostly young pro-Kurdish activists.
He told followers gathered in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican that news of the Ankara bomb attacks brought “pain for the numerous dead, pain for the wounded and pain because the attackers hit helpless people who were demonstrating for peace”. He said another 186 people had been injured in the attack, 28 of them seriously.
A few men clashing with police appeared to have survived the bombing, with blood clearly visible on their clothing.
The deadliest terrorist attack on Turkish soil, it is believed both blasts were ignited by suicide bombers.
Interior Minister Selami Altinok said he would not resign, denying there was a “security vacuum” in policing at the rally. Then we saw corpses around the station, ‘ said Ahmet Onen, 52. All together, the currents buffeting Turkey have evoked the memories of the 1990s, when the country was also gripped by violence and political uncertainty.
Turkish police fired in the air to disperse demonstrators angered by the deaths of their fellow activists from the scene, an AFP correspondent reported.
One of the bombers had been identified as a male aged between 25-30 after analyzing bodies at the scene and taking fingerprints, the pro-government Yeni Şafak said. The PKK has carried out its own attacks against Turkish soldiers in recent months.
Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, called for solidarity and determination.
Davutoglu also stated that several potential suicide attackers had been apprehended in Istanbul and Ankara recently.
Turkey has started three days of mourning after two bomb blasts at a peace rally in Ankara killed 95 people and wounded 245 others.
The rally, organized by the Confederation of Public Sector Trades’ Unions (KESK), was to call for an end to the renewed conflict between the terrorist organization PKK and the Turkish state.
“We are faced with a very big massacre, a vicious, barbarous attack”, HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas told reporters.
“Amid escalation of war, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) insisted to continue its offensive against the Kurdish areas, blaming the war on the Kurdish forces and claiming that our guerrillas we are threatening the security of the electoral process”, KCK said.
A victim is carried from the site of the blasts near Ankara’s…
Davutoglu said Kurdish rebels and Islamic State militants were most likely to be responsible.
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Twin blasts in the centre of the Turkish capital kill at least 86 and injure nearly 200 more, government says.
