A powerful bomb rocked the centre of Turkish capital Ankara yesterday, killing three people and injuring at least 15, the interior minister said, as immediate suspicion fell on Kurdish separatists.

“Three citizens were killed and 15 were injured, five of whom are in critical condition,” Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin told Turkish television.

Mr Sahin said there was a “high possibility that it was a terrorist attack,” using the government’s shorthand for attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned against a rush to judgment, saying in New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly, that “there has been no information that the incident was a terrorist attack”.

The bomb, which went off outside the administration offices for the capital’s central Cankaya district, blew out windows in shops and offices, damaged cars and sparked a fire which was put out by firefighters, media reports said.

The offices are near downtown Kizilay square in the city of four million people, that is home to many government buildings as well as military headquarters.

President Abdullah Gul, on an official visit to Germany, strongly condemned the attack, which he described as “inhuman”.

The blast comes days after Mr Erdogan said Turkey was ready to launch a ground assault on PKK camps across the border in northern Iraq in reprisal for a recent spate of rebel attacks.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Analyst Armagan Kuloglu, a retired army general, said that if the attack proved to be the work of the PKK, the motive was likely to strengthen their position in any future negotiations with the state.