Turkey: Two officers injured in blast outside interior ministry

An explosion outside Turkey's interior ministry in the capital Ankara was a "terrorist attack", the interior minister has said.

Two attackers arrived in a car at around 09:30 (06:30 GMT) and carried out the attack injuring two officers, Ali Yerlikaya said.

Mr Yerlikaya said an attacker blew himself up in front of a ministry building and another was "neutralised".

A group linked to the PKK has admitted carrying out the attack.

The government says one of the attackers was a PKK member. The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is considered a terror group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US.

The explosion on Ataturk Boulevard happened hours before parliament was due to reconvene after a summer break.

Immortals Battalion - the group that claimed responsibility - said this is why they targeted the ministry, which is close to parliament.

The incident began when one of the attackers exited their car and threw a small explosive at the ministry building to distract security.

After this, the second attacker opened fire at guards by the ministry gate, before setting off a bomb strapped to him - which resulted in his death.

The first person, meanwhile, ran into the compound and was immediately shot dead by police.

Two officers were injured. One was shot in the chest and another suffered injuries in both legs and an eye.

Mr Yerlikaya told reporters that none of the injuries were life-threatening.

A senior Turkish security official told the BBC the attackers had hijacked their vehicle on Saturday in Kayseri, a city some 260 km (161 miles) south-east of Ankara.

They reportedly shot dead the car's driver, a 24-year-old veterinarian who was driving in the countryside.

The official said footage from security cameras from Kayseri to the Syrian border were being reviewed to determine where the suspects came from.

The explosion happened just hours before parliament was due to reconvene

In his speech opening parliament, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the attack as "the final flutters of terrorism".

"The vile people who took aim at the peace and security of our citizens did not reach their goal and they never will."

Kurdish militants have come under intense pressure by the authorities, who have jailed their leaders and conducted military operations against Kurdish bases inside Turkey and across the border in Syria and Iraq.

• How Sweden and Finland went from neutral to Nato

Sunday's bomb was the first in Ankara since 2016, when a spate of deadly attacks gripped the country.

The last attack in the capital was in March 2016 - it was the fifth in the Turkish capital in a year.

The last major attack in Turkey was in November last year, when a bomb in a busy street in Istanbul killed six people.

Turkish authorities blamed Kurdish militant groups in Syria, though no-one admitted the attack.

The PKK, which has Marxist-Leninist roots, was formed in the late 1970s and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.

In the 1990s, the PKK rolled back on its demands for an independent state, calling instead for more autonomy for the Kurds. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict.

Fighting flared up again after a two-year-old ceasefire ended in July 2015.