At least 86 people were killed when two suspected suicide bombers hit a rally of pro-Kurdish and leftist activists outside Ankara's main train station yesterday, weeks ahead of an election, in the deadliest attack of its kind on Turkish soil.

Bodies covered by flags and banners, including those of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), lay scattered on the road among bloodstains and body parts.

"Like other terror attacks, the one at the Ankara train station targets our unity, togetherness, brotherhood and future," President Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement, calling for "solidarity and determination".

Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu told a news conference that 86 people had been killed and 186 wounded, 28 of whom were in intensive care. The death toll could rise further.

Witnesses said the two explosions happened seconds apart shortly after 1000 a.m. as hundreds gathered for a planned march to protest over a conflict between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants in the southeast.

"I heard one big explosion first and tried to cover myself as the windows broke. Right away there was the second one," said Serdar, 37, who was working at a newspaper stand in the train station. "There was shouting and crying and I stayed under the newspapers for a while. I could smell burnt flesh."

There were no claims of responsibility for the attack.

Turkey a NATO member has been in a heightened state of alert since starting a "synchronised war on terror" in July, including air strikes against Daesh fighters in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq. It has also rounded up hundreds of suspected Kurdish and Islamist militants at home.

The attacks, in the scale of casualties, exceeded events in 2003, when two synagogues, the Istanbul HSBC Bank headquarters and the British consulate were hit with a total loss of 62 lives. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda.

Yesterday's attacks came as expectation mounted that PKK militants would announce a unilateral ceasefire, effectively restoring a truce that collapsed in July. The government had already dismissed the anticipated move as an election gambit to bolster the HDP, whose success at June elections had helped erode the ruling AK party's majority.

Hours after the bombing, the PKK ordered its fighters to halt operations in Turkey unless they faced attack. It said through the Firat news website it would avoid acts that could hinder a "fair and just election" on Nov. 1.

Footage screened by broadcaster CNN Turk showed a line of young men and women holding hands and dancing, and then flinching as a large explosion flashed behind them, where people had gathered carrying HDP and leftist party banners.

"We are faced with a very big massacre, a vicious, barbarous attack," HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas told reporters.

He drew a parallel with the bombing of an HDP rally in the south eastern city of Diyarbakir on the eve of the last election in June and a suicide bombing blamed on Daesh in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border in July, which killed 33 mostly young pro-Kurdish activists.

The Interior Minister said he could not confirm it was a suicide bombing.

An angry crowd booed and threw bottles when the health and interior ministers arrived in a convoy at the scene, and they were quickly driven away.

Some activists saw the hand of the state in all three attacks on Kurdish interests, accusing Erdogan and the AK Party of seeking to stir up nationalist sentiment, a charge Turkey's leaders have vehemently rejected.

"Suruc, Diyarbakir and now Ankara, all works of murderer Erdogan. We will tear down that palace," said a 21-year-old university student, Tarik, who had been less than 50 metres from one of yesterday's blasts.

Pockets of activists still at the scene chanted "Murderer Erdogan" and "the murderer AKP will give account".

Authorities were investigating claims yesterdays attacks were carried out by suicide bombers, two government officials told reporters. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu cancelled his next three days of election campaigning and held an emergency meeting with the heads of police and intelligence agencies.

Renewed conflict in the southeast since July's collapse of the two-year-old ceasefire, had raised questions over how Turkey can hold a free and fair election in violence-hit areas but the government has so far said the vote will go ahead.