Two other militants who took part in the attack in the city of Bingol were captured injured and the police were looking for a fourth suspected accomplice, security sources said.

The incident took place around 10:00 pm (1900 GMT) Sunday, just as two bombs exploded in a residential neighbourhood in Istanbul, killing at least 16 people and leaving more than 150 wounded.

Bingol Governor Irfan Balkanlioglu said the attack on the police station appeared to be a retaliatory act after an intensified army crackdown against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), both inside Turkey and neighbouring northern Iraq, where the rebels take refuge.

"They have reached the end. They are trying to cover up their heavy losses in northern Iraq by attacking innocent people," Anatolia quoted the governor as saying.

Turkish fighter jets bombed PKK camps in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq, a major rebel stronghold, on Sunday morning.

The Turkish media blamed the PKK for the twin blasts in Istanbul, even though officials have not yet said who was behind the attacks.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has waged a bloody campaign for self-rule in the Kurdish-majority southeast since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.