"We believe that hardliners within the PKK are responsible for the attack" on Tuesday evening at a crowded park in Diyarbakir, the minister, who was not identified, told the popular Vatan newspaper.

The blast that killed 10 people, most of them children, and left 14 others injured came a day after Turkey's main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), appealed to the PKK to call a ceasefire.

The government, the minister said, believes that the DTP made the appeal with the prior consent of PKK leaders, who have recently spoken about the possibility of a truce.

"But there are divisions within the group. There are some hardliners," the minister told Vatan. "Those hardliners carried out this bloody act to mix up things and scupper the (ceasefire) plan of the group leaders."

The blast was the deadliest in a string of bombings across Turkey this year.

Officials have said that the bomb -- a homemade remote-control device planted in a flask -- went off while it was being carried to another location, suggesting that the park was not the intended target.

A shadowy nationalist Turkish group, the Turkish Revenge Brigade, claimed responsibility for the blast, vowing on its website to avenge the killings of Turks by the PKK, which has stepped up violence this year.

The authorities have played down the claim as an attempt for publicity, and even though no official statement has been made about the perpetrators, police sources have said that suspicion fell on the PKK.

The group, which has fought for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast since 1984, has notably increased attacks on the security forces this year after it called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.

Kurdish militants have also claimed 16 bombings across Turkey, including attacks in tourist resorts in the west, which killed a total of 12 people and injured about 200, according to an AFP count.