When one group are muslims and the other aren't it defaults to 'muslims are to blame'. That's the only acceptable kind of conspiracy now I'm afraid! . Before anyone criticises this post is 'tongue in cheek'.

Here now. He didn't directly accuse the Turkish government of being complicit in the attack; he said he'd talked to a number of Turks who were prepared to place responsibility for it -- or even outright complicity -- into the lap of the AKP government, and there is ample evidence that the Turkish opposition is saying exactly that.

This article has some of the most inflammatory stuff:

[Link]

"At the scene of the blast, the shock turned to anger against the government, which was accused by some of having played a role in the attack. Demonstrators assaulted a police car, while police officers shot in the air to disperse an angry crowd. Several government ministers who visited the scene had to beat a hasty retreat after being booed and pelted with water bottles".

and,

"HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas called the Ankara murders a 'massacre' and an 'attack by our state on our people.' He added President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu need not bother to call him to express their condolence, because he would refuse to talk to them".

and,

"Lutfu Turkkan, a right-wing lawmaker in parliament, said the spotlight was on Turkey’s main intelligence agency MIT. The Ankara attack 'was either a failure by the intelligence service, or it was done by the intelligence service,' he wrote on Twitter".

I, for one, don't find it surprising at all that voices in the Turkish opposition would feel this way about the attack, considering how divisive Erdogan and his government are in that country. I would be a bit surprised to discover actual government complicity in it, but I don't believe it's beyond the pale, and clearly neither do a lot of Turks.

Great kebabs though.

Yesterday, Turkish military planes bombed key targets of the PKK, despite the latter group officially announcing a ceasefire until the elections to make sure that they occur smoothly and fairly.

There are two serious questions I believe the AKP have to answer here:

1. Why has Erdogan officially accused certain groups of committing the attacks before the official autopsies of the suicide bombers has been concluded? First he blamed far-left militants, Kurds or IS, now he's narrowed it down to IS. What grounds does he have to make this claim?

2. If he is blaming IS, why do we have a retaliatory attack on the PKK less than 48 hours after the bombings in Ankara?

We have to bear in mind the context when we consider these points. The AKP are 3 weeks away from an election where they want to a) reassume the parliamentary majority they lost in the previous election, and b) prevent the Kurdish HDP from getting above the 10% threshold as they did in June. Again, from chatting to several Turks (read again if you have to), there is a sense that the only way in which they can do both of these is to demonise the Kurds, preferably by bringing them back in to armed conflict with the state and thus making Erdogan seem powerful and the man who can protect Turkish national security.