No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
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The Government of Pakistan extended its heartfelt sympathies and condolences to the bereaved families and to the brotherly people and government of Turkey.
Special police walk near the site where a Turkish police bus was targeted in a bomb attack in the central Istanbul district of Vezneciler, Turkey, June 7, 2016.
NATO-member Turkey is also a member of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group which controls large swathes of territory in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.
Council of Europe leader Thorbjorn Jagland said in a statement: “Again a deadly attack in Istanbul has killed and injured so many innocent people in the nation’s largest city”. But Kurdish militants have staged similar attacks on the security forces in the recent past, including in Istanbul and the capital Ankara.
Turkey has been struggling against Kurdish groups.
Erdogan said two people were undergoing surgery in the hospital where he visited.
In May, three people were killed in a vehicle bombing by Kurdish rebels against a gendarmerie station in Midyat and, in April, a soldier was killed and six others wounded in a auto bomb attack against their outpost in Mardin.
Tuesday’s attack was the fourth major bombing in Istanbul this year, two of them targeting tourists and two hitting security forces.
Later on Tuesday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that the country’s war on militant and terror groups would continue “to the end” and that the blasts were “unforgivable”.
The Associated Press reported that authorities have a “news blackout” – meaning the media can not report details of the investigation.
Foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also condemned the attack, pointing out that it had come on the second day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
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The PKK also claimed a auto bombing in Istanbul last month that wounded eight people included soldiers. “Terrorism seeks to undermine the very values that the North Atlantic Alliance stands for: democracy, individual liberty, human rights, and the rule of law”.
