DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Aug 8 (AFP) - A suspected Kurdish rebel was killed and another wounded Sunday when a bomb they were planting went off prematurely in Turkey's predominately Kurdish southeast, security officials said.
In what may have been an attempt to assassinate the governor of Van province, two suspected militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were placing a time-delayed bomb at an unguarded police post along the highway leading from the center of Van city to the airport in the early hours of Sunday when it went off prematurely.
The PKK, now renamed KONGRA-GEL, ended a five-year unilateral cease-fire with the government on June 1, raising tensions in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.
One suspected rebel died from his injuries while being rushed to hospital.
Fearing the second injured suspected rebel may have another bomb, police tried to negotiate with him to surrender, but were eventually forced to raid the police post.
The suspected rebel did have another bomb, but was unable to set it off before being captured without further bloodshed.
The governor of Van, Hikmet Tan, speculated the bomb may have been meant for him.
"If the explosion hadn't happened prematurely, we would have passed along this route at that hour. After the failure of the first attack on me why not a second," he told journalists after visiting the scene of the blast.
Three people were killed and 24 wounded on July 2 when a remote-controlled car bomb went off as a convoy carrying Tan was passing. Tan was not injured in the attack, which PKK rebels denied carrying out.
Some 37,000 people have been killed since the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the region in 1984.