Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said the explosion occurred in the center of the mainly Kurdish city of Bingol, a town in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast on Saturday. He said the blast was near the local branch of the ruling AK Party, but the building was not the intended target. Police said the suspected suicide bomber was a woman.

There was no immediate responsibility claim, Turkey is fighting a long-running separatist insurgency in the southeast, and the blast comes as the government is trying to provide relief to thousands of people rendered homeless by a powerful earthquake in Van, another largely Kurdish province.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has carried out suicide attacks in southeast Turkey in the past, but it is a tactic it has rarely used in its armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule that began in 1984.

Turkey, the European Union and the United States all consider the PKK to be a terrorist organization.