Turkey has suffered a string of attacks in recent months from both Kurdish militants linked with the PKK as well as from the IS group, resulting in dozens of casualties.
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The site is also located near a local ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) office.
The blast, which went off on Monday, September 12 morning, took place between the AK party’s offices and those of the governor, Anadolu news agency reported.
The attack occurred on Eid al-Adha, a major public holiday.
It struck just 200 metres from the Van provincial governor’s office, security forces said, tearing off the front of a four-storey building and setting nearby cars and buildings ablaze.
Officials said 48 people were wounded but no one died.
The explosion, said to be a auto bomb, struck the centre of Van in southeast Turkey, which has suffered from numeroua terrorist attacks in recent months.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast, which initially appeared to have been caused by a vehicle bomb.
Burhan Kayaturk, a local member of parliament from the AKP, said the blast had targeted the ruling AK Party’s offices, but that they were well-secured and had not been badly damaged.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party, the country’s main opposition party and the United States all have criticized the move.
There were no deaths in the attack, which the security sources have blamed on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that has carried out auto bomb attacks in the southeast and the capital Ankara this year.
Rescuers and ambulances have been sent to the scene.
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Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the PKK first took up arms in 1984, with the aim of carving out an independent state for Turkey´s Kurdish minority.
