ISTANBUL: A suicide bomb squad killed a police officer and wounded nearly a dozen people in central Turkey on Friday after it drove into a police station and opened fire, reports said.

Three men sped their vehicle into a police station in the city of Kayseri, where they fired weapons before one of the attackers set off a bomb strapped to his body, it said.

One officer was killed instantly and another left in critical condition.

Ten civilians, including several children, who were nearby were wounded, Turkey's Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin was quoted as saying.

Police suspect the attackers were members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and carried out the bombing in panic after fleeing a traffic stop earlier in the day, reports said.

It marked a rare suicide bombing in Turkey, which frequently sees roadside explosions and bomb attacks carried out by the PKK.

The group, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and by much of the international community, took up arms in Kurdish-majority south-eastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.

Last September a powerful bomb rocked the centre of the capital Ankara, killing three people and wounding at least 15 and a bomb blast in May last year injured eight people near a bus stop in Istanbul. Both attacks were blamed on the PKK.