The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) said the bomb attack was a reprisal to the government's stern response to a wave of Kurdish riots that claimed 15 lives, including three children, in the mainly Kurdish southeast and in Istanbul.

The group warned in a statement posted on its website of fresh attacks if the government does not drop its policy of "repression" against the Kurds.

"The child murderers... who are dealing massacre and death to our people... will not be able to escape our reprisal units," the statement said.

"We will pursue acts against the fascist AKP and all fascist institutions which support and carry out the massacre of our people," it added.

Three people were injured in Wednesday's attack against the AKP branch in Istanbul's Esenyurt district when a bomb placed inside a garbage bin at the entrance to the office went off.

Last week's riots during which Kurdish protestors clashed with police were the worst urban unrest to have hit Turkey in decades.

Police opened fire to disperse the demonstrators, many of them teenagers and children, who torched banks and public buildings, vandalized shops and threw molotov cocktails.

Turkish officials say TAK is a cover group for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to carry out actions that draw international condemnation, but the PKK denies any link.

About 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast.

Tension has escalated in the southeast since June 2004 when the group called off a unilateral ceasefire.