ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the heart of the Turkish capital, Ankara, while a second assailant was killed in a shootout with police Sunday, the interior minister said.

The attack occurred hours before Turkey's Parliament was set to reopen after its three-month summer recess with an address by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Two police officers were slightly wounded in the bombing near an entrance to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Assailants who arrived at the scene inside a light commercial vehicle carried out the attack, he said.

"Our heroic police officers, through their intuition, resisted the terrorists as soon as they got out of the vehicle," Yerlikaya later told reporters. "One of them blew himself up, while the other one was shot in the head before he had a chance to blow himself up."

"Our fight against terrorism, their collaborators, the (drug) dealers, gangs and organized crime organizations will continue with determination," he said.

The interior minister did not say who was behind the attack. However, ANF News, a news agency close to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, reported Sunday night that the group had claimed responsibility for the blast.

Leftist extremists and the Islamic State group have also carried out deadly attacks throughout Turkey in the past.

Erdogan gave his speech in Parliament as planned and called the attack "the last stand of terrorism."

"The scoundrels who targeted the peace and security of the citizens could not achieve their goals and they never will," he said.

The president reiterated his government's aim to create a 30-kilometer (20 mile) safe zone along Turkey's border with Syria to secure its southern border from attacks.

Turkey has launched several incursions into northern Syria since 2016 to drive away the Islamic State group and a Kurdish militia group, known by the initials YPG, and controls swaths of territory in the area.