Kurd rebel group denies carrying out Ankara attack

The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) yesterday denied carrying out a bomb attack which killed six people in Ankara, after Turkish officials said the attack bore the hallmarks of the militant group.

"We have no connection with the attack," the PKK said in a statement posted on the Firat news agency website, which has close links to the guerillas and has published its statements.

The outlawed PKK has been fighting for an ethnic homeland in Turkey since 1984 and Ankara blames it for more than 30,000 deaths. It has carried out suicide bombings in the past.

Ankara's governor said earlier yesterday a suicide bomber carried out the attack in Turkey's capital on Tuesday, and that the type of explosives used pointed to Kurdish separatists.

"It is understood the incident was caused by the explosion of a plastic (explosives) bomb on this person's body and the incident's style matches the methods of the separatist organisation," Kemal Onal told reporters.

Tuesday's explosion, the worst in the capital in at least a decade, comes amid heightened political tension.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government called a national election ahead of schedule to resolve a conflict with the secularist elite over a recent presidential election.