Suspected suicide attackers have set off a car bomb near a police station in central Turkey, killing two policemen and wounding 16 civilians.

Turkey's interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin, says two suspects sped through a police checkpoint Friday and detonated the bomb outside a police station in the town of Pinarbasi in Kayseri province.

Sahin says police first spotted the car in neighboring Kahramanmaras province, where it ignored calls to stop at the checkpoint. He says security forces opened fire as the vehicle approached the police station in Pinarbasi, before the bomb went off.

Both of the attackers were killed in the incident.

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility.

But Sahin hinted that Kurdish rebels might have been behind the attack. He said the “crazy acts” of a terrorist group are continuing, in apparent reference to the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

PKK rebels have been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for nearly three decades. The conflict has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist group.

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