Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said today that an investigation showed an explosion that killed at least two people in the Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir was a "terror attack".
His comments came a day after the blast shook police headquarters which the minister had initially said was an accident that occurred during repairs on armoured vehicles.
Speaking on Haber-Turk television, Soylu said the cause of the blast became clear on Tuesday night after a thorough investigation.
"It was a terror attack," he said. The minister said one civilian technician employed at the facility was trapped under the rubble and died, and a policeman was also killed.
State-run news agency Anadolu reported a third individual had also died.
Some 12 people were lightly injured and were being treated at hospitals, Soylu added.
The minister said explosives had been placed underground, without elaborating further.
"We had first thought that someone had entered and laid (explosives) but they carried it out through a tunnel dug from outside," he said.
"We scan the surrounding of our police buildings approximately once in every month, so as not to encounter any threat. It means they had placed it in a short period of time."
No individual or group has claimed the attack.
The blast, which could be heard in several areas across the city, added to security jitters just days ahead of a key referendum expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers.
Images from the scene showed that the force of the blast created a large crater and caused considerable destruction to the building.
The southeast has been battered by renewed fighting between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces since a fragile truce collapsed in 2015.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 during which over 40,000 people have been killed.
The group is designated by Ankara, the United States and the European Union as a terror group.
Diyarbakir city and its region have over the last year been repeatedly hit by PKK attacks targeting the security forces.
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