Turkish leftist group claims responsibility for attack on Istanbul police

Special forces police officers stand guard at the scene of a bomb blast in Istanbul January 6, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

ISTANBUL - The Turkish far-left group DHKP-C has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack at a police station in Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet district on Tuesday that killed one officer and wounded another.

A female suicide bomber entered the police station saying in English that she had lost her purse before blowing herself up inside the three-storey building, across the square from the Aya Sofya museum and the Blue Mosque, which are among the main sites for millions of visitors to Istanbul each year.

In a statement posted on "The People's Cry" website hours after the attack, the group said the bombing was against the ruling AK Party over the killing of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who died in March last year after nine months in a coma from a head wound sustained during an anti-government protest.

"It is the same state which shot Berkin Elvan and which protects the thief ministers," the statement said, in an apparent reference to a Monday ruling of a parliamentary commission not to commit four ex-ministers to a higher court over graft allegations.