Blasts Kill Scores at Peace March in Turkish Capital

ISTANBUL — Two devastating explosions struck Saturday morning in the heart of Ankara, the Turkish capital, killing more than 90 people who had gathered for a peace rally and heightening tensions just three weeks before snap parliamentary elections.
Late Saturday, the prime minister’s office said that at least 95 people were killed and 246 were wounded.
The blasts, which officials called the deadliest terrorist attack in modern Turkey’s history, occurred near Ankara’s main train station just as Kurds and leftists planned to march to protest the recent resumption of armed conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants. It is a conflict that has been waged for nearly three decades, but in recent times the two sides had seemed to be on the path to peace.
“We were expecting an attack in Ankara before the elections, but nothing to this extent,” said Sedat Kartal, an Ankara resident reached by phone, who rushed to the scene after hearing the first explosion. “There’s so much hate and polarization, nothing is surprising anymore.”
Turkey is facing a number of destabilizing forces: violence related to conflicts with Kurdish rebels and the Islamic State group; political instability; economic uncertainty; and a growing flow of refugees from the civil war in Syria. All together, the currents buffeting Turkey have evoked memories of the 1990s, when it was also gripped by violence and political uncertainty, shattering Turks’ image of their country as a haven of stability and prosperity next to a Middle East upended by wars and chaos.