AFP/Ankara

At least 86 people were killed yesterday in the Turkish capital Ankara when twin blasts ripped through groups of leftist and pro-Kurdish activists gathering for an anti-government peace rally, the deadliest attack in the history of modern Turkey.
The attack, near Ankara’s main train station, ratcheted up tensions ahead of Turkey’s November 1 snap elections which were already soaring amid the government’s offensive on Kurdish militants.
Bodies of the slain activists were seen strewn across the ground after the blasts, with the banners they had been holding lying next to them for the “Work, Peace and Democracy” rally.
Sixty-two people died at the scene of the blasts and 24 more then succumbed to their wounds in hospital, health minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu told reporters in Ankara. He said another 186 people had been injured in the attack, 28 of them seriously.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the “heinous attack”, saying it was aimed at “our unity and our country’s peace.”
A Turkish government official told AFP that the authorities “suspect that there is a terrorist connection,” without giving further details. Reports said the authorities were investigating if a suicide bomber was involved.
Interior minister Selami Altinok said he would not resign, denying there was a “security vacuum” in policing at the rally.
There were scenes of chaos after the blasts, as ambulances raced to get to the wounded and police cordoned off the area around the train station.
“We heard one huge blast and then one smaller explosion and then there was a great movement and panic. Then we saw corpses around the station,” said Ahmet Onen, 52.
“A demonstration that was to promote peace has turned into a massacre, I don’t understand this,” he said, sobbing.
Turkish police fired in the air to disperse demonstrators angered by the deaths of their fellow activists from the scene, an AFP correspondent reported.
Amateur footage broadcast by NTV television showed smiling activists holding hands and dancing and then suddenly falling to the ground as a huge explosion went off behind them.
Reports said that hundreds of people in Ankara had rushed to hospital to donate blood for the victims.
The blast was the deadliest in the history of the modern Turkish Republic, surpassing the May 2013 twin bombings in Reyhanli on the Syrian border that killed over 50 people.
With international concern growing over instability in the key Nato member, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini urged Turkey to “stand united against terrorists.”
French president Francois Hollande condemned the “odious terrorist attack”  while Russian President Vladimir Putin passed his condolences to Erdogan.
US ambassador John Bass said he was “appalled by the terrorist attack”.
Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu was hosting a meeting of top officials, including powerful spy chief Hakan Fidan, in the early afternoon to discuss the attack.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was to have been one of several groups that was to have taken part in the pro-peace rally.
“We are faced with a huge massacre. A barbaric attack has been committed,” said the HDP’s leader Selahattin Demirtas.
He blamed a “mafia state” and a “state mentality which acts like a serial killer” for the attack.
The attack comes with Turkey on edge ahead of November 1 polls and a wave of unrest over the past few months.
An attack in the predominantly Kurdish town of Suruc on July 20 targeting pro-HDP activists and blamed on Islamic State (IS) jihadists killed 32 people and wounded a hundred others.
The militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) accused Ankara of collaborating with IS and resumed attacks on the Turkish security forces after observing a two-year ceasefire.
Over 140 members of the security forces have since been killed while Ankara claims to have killed over 1,700 Kurdish militants in weeks of bombardments of PKK targets in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq.
With conspicuous timing, the PKK yesterday announced it would suspend all attacks -- except in self defence -- ahead of the polls.
“Heeding calls from Turkey and abroad, our movement has decided on a state of inactivity by our guerillas, unless our people and our guerilla forces are attacked,” Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella movement that includes the PKK, said in a statement.
The HDP performed strongly in the last election on June 7, winning 80 seats in parliament to deprive Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of an outright majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002.
The AKP then failed to form a coalition in months of talks, prompting Erdogan -- who had been hoping for a large majority to push through reforms to boost his powers -- to call another election on November 1.
The office of Davutoglu said that he had cancelled election campaigning for the next three days.
Protesters attacked several offices of the main political party in Iraq’s Kurdish north yesterday in a third day of violent unrest that threatens to destabilise the region at a time of war with Islamic State militants.
The demonstrations that began on October 1 initially targeted the autonomous region’s government, which many Kurds blame for an economic crisis that has left them struggling to pay the bills.
But the anger took a partisan turn on Friday when protesters in the city of Qaladize torched an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) after at least one demonstrator was killed.
The region’s president, Massoud Barzani, called for calm but young men blocked a main road in the town of Said Sadiq yesterday and pelted a KDP building with stones, said Farouq Abd al-Karim, a local party member who was present.
Live footage from Said Sadiq broadcast on Kurdish channel NRT showed riot police holding back protesters, some of whom wielded slingshots. Shops were shuttered and a tyre burned in the street.
There were also protests in the city of Sulaimaniyah and the town of Kalar, where demonstrators threw stones at a KDP office.
The pattern of unrest reflects long-running political divisions in the autonomous region of three provinces that have been exacerbated by a power struggle over the presidency of Barzani, who is also head of the KDP.
Sulaimaniyah province, where the protests are taking place is dominated by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party and former opposition movement Gorran, which are seeking to weaken the KDP’s grip on power.
In Erbil and Duhok provinces, where the KDP is strong, security was tightened around offices of the PUK and Gorran to avert any retaliatory attacks.
The KDP, Gorran, PUK and two of the region’s other parties have been wrangling over the terms of an extension of Barzani’s tenure since it expired on August 20.
The stalemate has polarised Kurdish politics and compounded an economic crisis that began in early 2014 when Baghdad slashed funds to the region. A drop in oil prices has pushed the region further towards bankruptcy.