A female suicide bomber on Tuesday blew herself up in the most-visited tourist district of Istanbul, killing herself and a Turkish policeman, officials said.

In the first government reaction to the attack, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus condemned the strike as a "heinous terror attack".

The attack came five days after a member of an outlawed Marxist group attacked police on guard outside the Ottoman-era Dolmabahce palace in Istanbul on the Bosphorus.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) said it was behind the attack outside the palace, which houses the Istanbul offices of the Turkish prime minister.

Istanbul has been the scene of several bomb attacks in recent years, most notably the November 2003 attacks on two synagogues, the British consulate and a bank that left dozens dead.

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