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Ankara bombings mark polarization across Turkey

Leftist protesters set a barricade ablaze during minor clashes with Turkish security forces Monday in Istanbul.Cagdas Erdogan/Associated Press

ISTANBUL — Nothing seems to be enough to bring Turks together these days, even for a shared moment of grief or triumph. And the reactions to the weekend massacre of 97 people in Ankara reflect a deepening feeling that the country has become dangerously polarized.

After the deadliest terrorist attack in modern Turkish history, world leaders including Pope Francis, President Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, and others offered condolences to a grieving nation.

But Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, usually a dominating presence in public life, issued only a short statement and did not make a speech.

“This is the most fatal terror attack on Turkey in its history, and the fact that we cannot come together as a country at the moment and mourn for the loss of our citizens is deeply saddening,” said Ziya Meral, a Turkish academic who lives in London.

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Just days before, Turkey had something to celebrate: Aziz Sancar, a Turkish-American scientist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Rather than rejoice, a debate erupted on social media about whether he was truly Turkish, given that he was a distant relative of a lawmaker in the Kurdish party and had been born in the Kurdish-dominated southeast. In an interview with the BBC, Sancar said, “I am Turkish, that’s it.”

Within hours of the suicide bombing outside the Ankara train station, political leaders engaged in more bickering than consolation. Angry citizens began protesting against the Erdogan government, which will seek a new ruling majority in Parliament in the Nov. 1 national elections.

The attackers struck a Saturday peace rally organized by Kurdish and leftist groups calling for increased democracy and an end to the renewed fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels.

The government said Monday that the bombers were probably Islamic State operatives, not Kurds, and said it is close to identifying those responsible, the Associated Press reported.

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Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the bombers exploded about 11 pounds of dynamite each, and that authorities have detained ‘‘a large number’’ of suspects connected with the attack, the AP said.

After the attack, Kurdish political leader Selahattin Demirtas squarely blamed the government for the violence, which officials have strenuously denied. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, at a nationally televised news conference, appealed to national unity but bashed his political opponents, and was criticized for showing little empathy.

In an interview Monday with NTV, a private television channel, Davutoglu said the Islamic State was the “prime suspect” in the bombing. Even if that is determined to be the case, it is unlikely to result in a sense of shared purpose in the fight against terrorism.

The Kurds — the primary victims of Saturday’s attack — have long blamed the Turkish government for enabling the rise of the Islamic State by supporting rebel groups fighting against the Syrian government.

As grief and anger mixed at funerals around the country Monday, Nadiye Surel, a retired dentist, was walking in Istanbul and stopped in at a mosque after she saw a crowd of mourners.

At 71, Surel has lived through her share of Turkey’s traumas, from the political violence of the 1970s to the raging Kurdish insurgency of the 1990s. “I’ve seen all the vile and bloody periods in our history,” she said. “But I’ve never seen so much hatred between ordinary citizens.”

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Analysts explain the lack of unity in Turkey as a result of the increasingly divisive leadership of Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which has ruled for 13 years.

Turkey has long been divided by a number of fault lines — secular and religious, rich and poor, Turks and Kurds — and at one time Erdogan seemed capable of resolving these tensions. He sought peace with the Kurds, empowered the formerly oppressed religious masses, and presided, for a time, over a robust economy.

In recent years, though, that has all been reversed, as Erdogan has alienated many of his former supporters. His government has jailed journalists, chased businessmen with politically motivated tax investigations, and cracked down on peaceful protesters.

Analysts say the political environment now is the most combustible they have seen. In recent weeks, the government has cracked down on the Kurdish political movement, which did well in elections in June, and has increased pressure on journalists.

“Turkey is so deeply polarized after 13 years of AKP rule,” said Soner Cagaptay, a Turkish analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Once optimistic about Turkey’s future, he now fears the country is “about to come apart at the seams.”