Three other officers were wounded in the attack on the police station in the centre of Malazgirt town, Mus Governor Erdogan Bektas said.

He blamed the attack on the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), adding that the security forces had launched an operation to hunt down the assailants.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish east and southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

In a separate incident, an explosion hit a freight train in the neighbouring province of Bitlis late Wednesday, derailing three carriages, Anatolia said.

There were no casualties, the agency reported, adding that paramilitary police were investigating the incident.