ANKARA, Turkey: Thousands of people on Sunday attended a rally in Ankara under heavy security to remember the at least 95 people killed in twin bombings in the Turkish capital.
The demonstrators filled Sihhiye Square in central Ankara, close to the site of Saturday’s blasts outside the city’s train station, with some shouting anti-government slogans.
Turkish investigators worked on Sunday to identify the perpetrators and victims of Saturday’s bomb blasts.
Two suspected suicide bombers hit a rally of pro-Kurdish and labor activists near Ankara’s main train station three weeks before elections, fuelling unease in a country beset by conflict between state forces and Kurdish militants in the southeast.
“We are in mourning for peace,” said the front-page headline in the secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper as three days of national mourning declared by the prime minister got underway. Other papers voiced public anger over the attack.
“Scum attacked in Ankara,” said the Haberturk newspaper. “The goal is to divide the nation,” said the pro-government Star.
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 Safak said.
There were no claims of responsibility for the attack, which came as external threats mount for NATO member Turkey with increased fighting across its border with Syria and incursions by Russian warplanes on its air space over the last week.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, exposing a mosaic of domestic political perils, said Islamic State, Kurdish or far-leftist militants could have carried out the bombing. — Agencies
