DIYARBAKIR (Turkey), Jan 3: A powerful car bomb exploded Thursday near a military base in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, killing five people, hospital officials said.

About 70 others were injured in the explosion which occurred as a military vehicle was passing on a road in the city centre, some 100 metres from a military base and billets, governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu told reporters here.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the US embassy in Ankara condemned the blast as a “terrorist act.” Diyarbakir is a hotbed of Kurdish militancy and the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, is active in the area.

Two of the five victims were high school students attending private lessons at a nearby building.

The car bomb was set off by remote control and a security operation was under way in the city to catch the perpetrators, governor Mutlu said as bomb experts looked for clues at the scene.

Several of the injured were badly wounded. Those hurt included about 30 soldiers as well as civilians and high school students, officials said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but the PKK has repeatedly targeted Diyarbakir in its 23-year separatist campaign.

“Terrorism has reared its ugly head again. But these incidents will not affect our determination to fight terrorism both at home and abroad,” Erdogan said in Ankara in televised remarks.

The US embassy condemned the blast as “a horrible example of the meaningless tragedies caused by terrorism.” The United States “reiterates its determination to stand by Turkey in the struggle against all kinds of terrorism,” the statement said.

The PKK recently threatened retaliation following Turkish air strikes on its bases in neighbouring northern Iraq, conducted with US intelligence assistance.—AFP