TURKEY-EXPLOSION/OPPOSITION-SCUFFLES Pro-Kurdish leaders, supporters scuffle with police near scene of Ankara attacks

Record ID: 134784

  • Title: TURKEY-EXPLOSION/OPPOSITION-SCUFFLES Pro-Kurdish leaders, supporters scuffle with police near scene of Ankara attacks
  • Date: 11th October 2015
  • Summary: ANKARA, TURKEY (OCTOBER 11, 2015) (REUTERS) LEADER OF TURKEY'S SECULAR OPPOSITION REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY (CHP) KEMAL KILICDAROGLU AND HIS WIFE SELVI KILICDAROGLU LAYING RED CARNATIONS ON THE GROUND AT SITE OF FIRST EXPLOSION KILICDAROGLU AND HIS WIFE SELVI KILICDAROGLU WALKING WITH SECURITY KILICDAROGLU AND HIS WIFE GETTING INTO CAR AND LEAVING WHILE CROWDS OF PEOPLE AN
  • Embargoed: 26th October 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAAFZYBYINPLSJCU8QIVRMOGGEN
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Leader of Turkey's secular opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his wife Selvi Kilicdaroglu on Sunday (October 11), laid red carnations at the scene of the attack at Ankara's main railway station that killed up to 128 people.
    The two walked to the sites of both blasts that ripped through a rally of pro-Kurdish activists and civic groups on Saturday (October 10), surrounded by hundreds of people.
    Kilicdaroglu later met Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
    Thousands of people rallied near the scene of the attack on Sunday to pay their respects for those killed and wounded, many accusing President Tayyip Erdogan of stirring nationalist sentiment by his pursuit of a military campaign against Kurdish militants, a charge Ankara vehemently rejects.
    The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a major presence at Saturday's march, said police attacked its leaders and members as they tried to leave carnations earlier at the scene. Some were hurt in the melee, it said in a statement.
    A HDP video handout showed demonstrators scuffling with police as they attempted to push through a barricade set up by security forces near the site.
    Several people could be seen suffering from the effects of tear gas, as others gathered around to assist them.
    On Sunday, Turkey said it was focusing its investigation of the suspected suicide bombings on Islamic State. Opponents of President Erdogan blamed him for the worst such attack in Turkish history.
    Government officials made clear that despite widespread alarm over the attack, elections set for Nov. 1 would go ahead.
    The attacks have shocked a nation beset by resurgent conflict with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in its southeast and increasingly threatened by spillover from the war in neighbouring Syria.
    Islamic State fighters are encamped close to its borders, which mark also the frontier of the NATO alliance, and last week Russia launched air strikes in Syria, its planes violating Turkish air space on several occasions.
    Two senior security sources said initial signs suggested Islamic State was behind the Ankara attack, and that it bore striking similarity to a July suicide bombing in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border, also blamed on the radical Islamists.
    Turkey is vulnerable to infiltration by Islamic State, which holds swathes of Syrian land abutting Turkey where some two million refugees live. But the group, not normally reticent about its attacks, made no claim to the Suruc bombing and has made no claim so far to the Ankara attack.
    The HDP, which expanded beyond its Kurdish voter base and drew in mainly left-wing opponents of Erdogan at June elections, said the death toll had risen to 128 and that it had identified all but eight of the bodies.
    The scale of the casualties eclipsed attacks blamed on al Qaeda in 2003 when two synagogues, the Istanbul HSBC Bank headquarters and the British consulate were hit, killing 62 people. Questions have been raised over whether a parliamentary election due on Nov. 1 can be safely held.
    The bombs struck seconds apart as crowds gathered for a planned march to protest over the deaths of hundreds since the collapse in July of a ceasefire between security forces and the rebel PKK, which is deemed a terrorist group by the United States and the EU as well as Turkey. Some 40,000 have been killed since the insurgency began in 1984.
    The government has shown no sign of stopping its war against the PKK, even after the militant group on Saturday ordered its fighters to halt attacks on Turkish soil. The government dismissed the declaration as a ploy.
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