Police and ambulances were seen rushing in, Dogan news agency reported.
The station also serves as a police barracks, TRT said, citing a statement from the local governor. It was not immediately clear how many police and civilians were among the dead and wounded.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on live television there had been an attack on a police station in Van but did not elaborate, Trade Arabia reported.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported.
The attack targeted a police headquarters in the central Ipekyolu district of Van city, Van deputy governor Mehmet Parlak was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency, blaming the "regional terror group", the official phrase for the PKK.
He said that the three killed were all civilians while two of the 40 wounded were police, Digital Journal reported
Anadolu said that after the bombing police were sent to the scene, identifying a militant named M.O. suspected of bringing the car bomb in front of the police station.
He had been wounded and was detained and taken to the main police headquarters in Van city for questioning, it said.
Reuters reported that at least three people were killed and more than 50 were wounded in a car bomb attack on a police station in the eastern Turkish city of Elazig on Thursday, security sources said, hours after a similar bombing killed three people elsewhere in the region.
Footage showed a large plume of smoke rising from the area in the immediate aftermath of the blast and extensive damage to the facade of the police station.
Turkey’s Dogan news agency said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group was behind the attack. The group has frequently carried out attacks on police stations in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast in recent months.
التعليقات (0)