The state-run Anadolu Agency says several police and medics were sent to the area. A senior government official confirmed that most of the victims were German.
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Ms. Merkel warned that members of a German tour group may be among those who were killed.
“I condemn the terror incident in Istanbul assessed to be an attack by a suicide bomber with Syrian origin”.
The official death toll did not include the bomber.
“International terrorism has once again showed itself, with its awful and inhuman face”, she said.
Police and ambulances raced to the scene, throwing up a tight security cordon around the area as helicopters hovered overhead, and crowds of anxious locals and tourists clamored to find out what had happened, an AFP correspondent said.
The Dogan news agency said nine Germans and one Peruvian were also wounded.
Kurtulmus, the deputy premier, said two of the wounded were in serious condition.
Turkey is a popular destination for Germans, and Germany’s foreign ministry urged travelers in Istanbul “to avoid public gatherings (and) tourist attractions for now” after the attack.
The U.S. Embassy in Turkey tweeted, “Ambassador Bass: Closely following reports of an explosion in #Sultanahmet”.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said hours after news broke of the suicide bombing in İstanbul’s Sultanahmet square that both sides “must step up our efforts to counter extremist violence”, adding that this was one of the priorities agreed at the November 2015 EU-Turkey summit in Brussels. The suspect was not on Turkey’s militant watch list and may have recently crossed the border into Turkey from Syria.
The blast comes at a time Turkey is dealing with multiple threats to its security.
Evacuation… police move people on as they secure an area at the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul.
The blast was heard in districts of Istanbul several kilometres away, residents said.
Erdem Koroglu, who was working at a nearby office, told NTV television he saw several people on the ground following the blast.
“I heard a very loud blast, then came the screams”, said a Turkish man who did not want to be identified.
“Investigations into the cause of the explosion, the type of explosion and perpetrator or perpetrators are under way”, the governor’s office said.
Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Tuesday that it was necessary to continue to fight “terrorism” in all its forms and said his country would fight ISIL resolutely to ensure greater security, according to Reuters.
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That operation was blamed on Islamic State (IS) jihadists, as were two other bloody assaults in the country’s Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in the year.
