A hand-made bomb, comprising five kilogrammes of TNT explosives, was set of in the centre of the city of Hakkari on Thursday afternoon, as a police car was passing by, police told state-run Anatolia.

The bomb was placed in the trunk of a car, they said.

The provincial governor of Hakkari, Muammer Turker, earlier said 13 people, including three police officers, were injured in a blast.

One of the injured, Zeki Yesil, a university student, died at hospital after the blast, Anatolia said. The injured included four police officers, it added.

Hakkari province is close to the Iraqi border in southeast Turkey, where the majority of the population is Kurdish.

Bomb blasts are frequent in Kurdish Anatolia, where the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took up arms in 1984 against the state, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.