[21][22][23] Various political parties ended up cancelling their election campaigns while three days of national mourning were declared by the Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.

By 7 October, the surge in violence since July had led to the deaths of 141 soldiers and 1,740 militants, leading to several pro-government commentators to claim that the PKK was close to defeat.

[29] However, the large number of soldiers killed also contributed to civil unrest in other parts of the country, with attacks by Turkish nationalists taking place against the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) headquarters.

[49][50] The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) announced a temporary ban on all press coverage of the bombings following a request by the Prime Ministry.

[51] Monitoring group Turkey Blocks identified intentional slowing, or throttling, of the Twitter and Facebook social networks beginning some hours after the attack.

[64] The HDP has claimed that the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) was guilty of being "murderers with blood on their hands" and also of being the number one threat to Turkey's peace and security.

[citation needed] Veysel Eroğlu, the Minister of Forest and Water Management, made a heavily criticised statement in Afyonkarahisar implying that the HDP had purposely organised the attack against their own supporters to raise public sympathy for their party.

[73] President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the bombings and vowed that the Turkish people will stand in "unity and solidarity" following the "heinous attack".

[74][75] He encouraged everyone to take responsibility and act with good intentions, claiming that the government was working to uncover the full details of the incident as quickly as possible.

He said Turkey was an example of a country that had kept united despite several threats against national unity, announcing plans to meet with opposition party leaders in regards to the attack.

[79] He stated that all political parties had a duty to stand together against such attacks and called on the perpetrators to identify themselves, further claiming that violence was never an answer to a difference in viewpoints.

Accusing the state of conducting a "massacre" in the centre of the capital Ankara, he further claimed that they were facing a "mad, undignified attitude that has lost its mind".

He accused the AK Party government and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of forcing violence onto the people of Turkey, denouncing them as "murderers with blood on their hands".

[89] Former Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Orhan Pamuk criticized Erdoğan for what he said was a climate of insecurity as a result of the latter's persistence on trying to achieve a parliamentary majority that has brought the country to the brink of sectarian conflict.

[citation needed] During a one minute silence for the victims at the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying match between Turkey and Iceland, the crowd instead booed, whistled, shouted Turkish ultranationalist slogans and chanted Allahu akbar.

[139] The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), having claimed that they were the targets of the attack, abandoned a campaign strategy meeting due in their Istanbul headquarters.

[142] After a screen grab of Justice Minister Kenan İpek showing him smiling went viral, CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said that they should resign in a meeting with Davutoğlu.

The ceasefire announcement, which was made through the executive of the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), declared that the PKK would not conduct any attacks unless provoked or in self-defence.

In the afternoon following the attack, thousands of union members began protesting at Taksim Square in Istanbul against the bombing, with many participants chanting anti-government slogans and calling on both the governing AK Party and for Erdoğan to resign.

[145] Similar protests occurred in İzmir, with tensions between protestors and riot police briefly rising in Alsancak before deescalating shortly after.

HDP Members of Parliament of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey led a protest in Batman, before being met by riot police using tear gas and water cannon.

A group of 15 masked individuals in Kızılay, Ankara, began attacking police officers with fireworks before being met by water cannon and pepper spray.

Similar protests took place in Van, Tunceli and Kars, with participating politicians from the HDP and CHP as well as union members from KESK, TMMOB, TTB and DISK.