The office of the Governor of Turkey's southeastern city of Diyarbakir confirmed on Wednesday that a bomb, which killed 10 people and injured 17 others in the city Tuesday evening, was detonated by remote control.

The home-made device, placed in a thermos, exploded near a bus stop on Kosuyolu Street in Diyarbakir's Baglar region while it was being transported, the governor's office said in a written statement.

Seven children were among the dead in the blast in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish-majority city in southeastern Turkey, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported. It said four of the injured were still receiving treatment in hospital. 

"We condemn this inhuman terrorist attack, offer our condolences to families of the victims and wish a quick recovery to the injured," the statement said.

No individual or group claimed responsibility for the blast. The official statement said a full investigation was underway.

The incident, which is the country's deadliest single bombing since an al-Qaida attack in 2003, came as the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) stepped up its attacks in recent months.

According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry a total of 91 members of their security forces and 472 civilians have been killed in PKK attacks or clashes in the first seven months of this year.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984 which has sparked decades of violence and claimed more than 30,000 lives.
 
The violence has increased since the PKK called off a unilateral ceasefire in 2004.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2006)