Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday urged the worldwide community to unite anti-terrorism efforts as he expressed condolences to families of victims from the deadly terrorist attack in Ankara, capital of Turkey.
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There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack – the worst in Turkey’s history – but Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said there were “strong signs” that the blasts were suicide bombings.
Nine policemen were also injured in the attack, Hurriyet Daily News reported. He insisted that authorities were determined to find those behind the attack. A spokesman warned media organizations they could face a “full blackout” if they did not comply.
British police have been working with Turkish police to try to prevent Britons from traveling to Turkey and then into Syria to join Islamic State extremists. Turkey’s lira has lost 15 percent of its value against the USA dollar this year, and yields on government debt are up by nearly 300 basis points.
The attack left 245 people injured, with 48 of them in a serious condition.
The HDP was among those calling for Saturday’s rally for “peace and democracy”.
The cause of the blast has not yet been specified, but authorities report it was a suicide attack.
Video footage on social media showed several bodies lying on the ground, as survivors tried to attend to the wounded.
“There was a massacre in the middle of Ankara“, said Lami Ozgen, head of the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions.
Erdogan called for “solidarity and determination as the most meaningful response to terror” and said that those behind the attack aimed to sow division between sections of society. “In light of the ongoing violence in Turkey and the region, it is particularly important at this time that all Turkish citizens recommit to peace and stand together against terror”.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “there can be no justification for such a horrendous attack on people marching for peace…” “All North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies stand united in the fight against the scourge of terrorism”.
Interior Minister Selami Altinok yesterday said he would not resign, denying there was a “security vacuum” in policing at the rally.
“Suruc, Diyarbakir, and now Ankara, all works of murderer Erdogan”.
One of the two bombs was detonated amid a group of people without any clear political affiliation, while the other occurred at a spot where flags of the left-wing, pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, had been raised.
The PKK in northern Iraq has faced attacks in recent months from both the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and the Turkish government, which carried out a weekslong bombing campaign against PKK positions as the Kurdish fighters struggled to repel ISIS advances.
Only weeks before an election, two suspected suicide bombers hit a rally of pro-Kurdish and leftist activists outside ‘s main train station, the deadliest attack of its kind on Turkish soil.
The pro-Kurdish HDP party said in a statement that it believed its members were the main target of the bombings, and leader Selahettin Demirtas blamed the state for the attack.
“We heard one huge blast and then one smaller explosion and then there was a great movement and panic”.
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About a thousand people, primarily Kurds, have held an impromptu rally in Paris to show support for victims of the Ankara bombings.
