İzmir Governor Erol Ayyıldız has said initial findings show that the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was behind a car bomb attack that claimed the lives of two people and injured at least 11.
One police officer and a courthouse employee lost their lives in the explosion, which took place near a courthouse in İzmir.
“Thanks to the attention of our slain police officer, the real attack was prevented. The initial findings so far point to the PKK,” Ayyıldız told reporters.
Turkish police teams shot dead two suspected attackers and were searching for a third after the attack.
Ayyıldız said two Kalashnikov rifles, eight hand grenades and RPG7 rocket projectors were seized from the dead terrorists.
The governor also said seven people were injured in the explosion, three of them police officers.
Turkey faces multiple security threats. It has been hit by a series of bombings over the past 18 months, some of them blamed on ISIL, others on the PKK.
The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), an offshoot of the PKK, last month claimed responsibility for two attacks in İstanbul and İzmir that killed around 60 people.