ISTANBUL: Thirteen people including three police officers were wounded in an explosion in southeast Turkey on Thursday, a local official told the Anatolia news agency.

The blast occurred as a police car was passing through the centre of the city of Hakkari, provincial governor Muammer Turker told Anatolia, adding that the cause was not yet known.

The driver lost control of the vehicle, leaving three police officers in the car wounded, Turker said.

Hakkari province is close to the Iraqi border in southeast Turkey, where the majority of the population is Kurdish.

Bomb blasts are frequent in Kurdish Anatolia, where the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took up arms in 1984 against the state, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.