These are harrowing days for the Turkish people. For the third time in five months a deadly terrorist attack has hit Ankara, this time claiming 37 victims, all civilians.

Officials have identified one of the suspected perpetrators of Sunday’s carnage as a female suicide bomber belonging to the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, an internationally designated terrorist group. The immediate response of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government was to send warplanes to strike PKK camps in northern Iraq and to declare a broadcasting ban.

There have been calls for national unity in the face of the terrorist threat, but these will probably come to nothing: for Turkish society today is profoundly polarised. Even in grief, the country cannot come together.

Recently a man sued his wife for insulting the president. The 40-year-old truck driver recorded his wife on tape in order to use it as evidence in the courtroom. “I kept on warning her,” he told the press afterwards. “Our president is a good person and did good things for Turkey.” His wife has since launched divorce proceedings.

This is not an isolated story. A recent survey revealed that 76 per cent of Turkish people do not wish to be neighbours with someone who supports a different political party. Nor would they allow their children to be friends with the offspring of such people.

In the past, social divisions were drawn along ideological (left v right, secular v religious), ethnic (Kurds v Turks) or faith-based (Sunni v Alevi) lines. Today, however, the country is divided between those who support Mr Erdogan and those who do not.

The couple’s story is also a reminder of how busy Turkish courts have been recently. According to Bekir Bozdag, the justice minister, in the past two years more than 1,800 cases alleging insults towards the president have been opened. Among those put on trial are academics, journalists, doctors, bloggers and even high school students. Social media are now being monitored closely. A former Miss Turkey, Merve Buyuksarac, was prosecuted for criticising Mr Erdogan on Instagram, while Twitter has announced that Turkey tops the list of countries demanding that posts be removed.

When Can Dundar, the well-respected editor-in-chief of the daily Cumhuriyet, and his Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul were released from prison following a decision by the Constitutional Court, liberals breathed a sigh of relief. But Mr Erdogan was quick to denounce the court’s ruling: “I am saying this very clearly: I do not concur with the decision and I have no respect for it.” He went on: “This is not an acquittal, this is a release order.” The trial continues. As this authoritarian turn continues, the separation of powers is withering.

In this climate, the prospects for a peace process between the Turkish state and the PKK are vanishingly small. Turks and Kurds who believe in peace and coexistence know that, for now at least, they have lost. Meanwhile, TAK, an offshoot of the PKK, threatens to continue the horrific attacks on civilians. The instinct of the government is to fan the flames of antagonism rather than extinguish them. For example, earlier this month the ministry of justice called for MPs from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic party (HDP) to be stripped of their parliamentary immunity. If this request were to be granted, democratically elected politicians would face the threat of being put on trial.

But it would be a grave mistake to punish liberal Kurds for the acts of blind terror committed by hawkish elements in the name of Kurdish independence.

This is the turbulent backdrop to the negotiations between Turkey and the EU. In 2015, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey reached at least 2.5m. At the same time, an increasing number of Turkish citizens have come to feel like refugees in their own land.