ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkey on Friday (Aug 26) vowed to retaliate after a suicide truck bombing by suspected Kurdish militants in the southeastern town of Cizre, which killed at least 11 police officers.

"We will give those vile (attackers) the answer they deserve," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a news conference in Istanbul. "No terrorist organisation can hold Turkey captive." Eleven Turkish police officers were killed and more than 70 other people wounded when a suicide bomber exploded a bomb-laden truck near a four-storey police headquarters, the prime minister said.

"It is one of the treacherous attacks carried out by the vile PKK terrorist organisation," he added.

"Our people should understand and know that we have waged a collective war on terrorist groups," he said.

Over 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK first took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an independent state for Turkey's Kurdish minority.

It is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.