Sixty-eight other people were wounded in Thursday's explosion which occurred as a military vehicle was passing on a road in the centre of Diyarbakir, some 100 metres (yards) from a military base and billets, prosecutor Durdu Kavak said in a written statement.

Four of the dead were high school students attending classes at a nearby private school to prepare for university exams, it added.

There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the blast but immediate suspicion fell on the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has carried out a number of previous attacks in the area in recent years.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, picked up arms for self-rule in Turkey's southeast.