ANKARA (REUTERS) - A car bomb killed one civilian and wounded at least two soldiers when it exploded near a gendarmerie station in the south-eastern Turkish province of Mardin on Thursday (June 23), security sources said.

The explosion took place outside the gendarmerie outpost near the Omerli district of Mardin province and was carried out by Kurdish militant group PKK, sources said. The car bomb was detonated through remote control and killed a truck driver who was passing by.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have carried out similar attacks in Turkey's major cities in the recent past as violence has spiralled since the ceasefire with the PKK collapsed almost a year ago.

The unrest has been fuelled by the war in Syria. Turkey says the PKK - considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the European Union and the United States - has deep ties to the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia fighting just across the border.

The groups do not deny links. The PKK founded the YPG as a Syrian organisation a decade ago and both are inspired by Abdullah Ocalan, who led the PKK from its inception and lived in Syria shortly before his capture in 1999. He remains in jail.