The blast, close to local government offices, wounded around 50 people, including four police officers and four Iranian citizens, thought to have been visiting during the Muslim Eid holiday, officials said.
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But Besir Atalay, an AKP lawmaker from Van, pointed the finger of blame at the PKK.
“No democratic state can or will allow mayors and MPs to use municipality resources to finance terrorist organisations”, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter. “This is one of their attacks”, he added, in live comments on a private television channel.
The governor’s office said security forces are working to apprehend the perpetrators of the auto bombing.
Hundreds of people have been killed and injured in Turkey in recent months in attacks the government says were carried out by Kurdish militants or Islamic State.
At least 27 people were wounded in a auto bomb attack in the Turkish eastern province of Van on September 12, in the first day of Islam’s holy Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported.
Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on Monday released his first statement since being “isolated” in April 2015, calling for the Turkish state to resume peace negotiations with the Kurdish militant group.
The attack came a day after Ankara replaced 28 elected mayors with appointees, mostly in the Kurdish dominated east of the country.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated his government’s commitment to eliminating IS in Syria and the threat the group poses to Turkey.
“You, as mayors and municipal councils, can not stand up and support terrorist organisations”.
In the aftermath of a failed coup on July 15, 2016, the government of Turkey has removed 24 district mayors, two provincial mayors and two county mayors from office and have replaced them with trustees.
“It is a step taken too late in my opinion”, Erdogan said, as cited by Reuters.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.
“This unlawful and arbitrary action will only deepen existing problems in Kurdish towns and cause the Kurdish issue to be even more unsolvable”, the party said in a statement.
“He said if the state is ready for the projects, we can implement them in six months”.
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“He is in good health”, Mehmet Ocalan told supporters in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, a day after meeting his brother on the Imrali prison island near Istanbul.
