By Agence France-Presse

Turkey on Friday said three Syrians were killed in the Turkish town of Reyhanli close to the Syrian border in a car blast the president said might be terror-related.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said two Syrians died at the scene while a third was taken to hospital with serious injuries. State news agency Anadolu said the third individual died soon after.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said initial findings suggested “there might be more of a link with terror”.

“Our colleagues are looking into who was behind this,” he added in televised comments.

Soylu said authorities believed there was an improvised explosive device inside the car.

“It could have been a bomb with a timer,” Soylu added. The Syrians had been living in Turkey under temporary protection, the minister told reporters.

The blast occurred less than a kilometre from the Reyhanli district governor’s office before 1000 GMT, state news agency Anadolu reported.

But the Hatay province governorate where the town is located said that no one else was injured and there was “no damage to the surrounding environment”.

A statement from the governor’s office also said the car belonged to a Syrian national.

Images in Turkish media showed thick black smoke and flames from the car as firefighters fought the blaze.

A twin car bombing blamed on pro-Damascus groups in May 2013 in Reyhanli killed more than 50 people in one of the deadliest attacks in Turkey’s recent history.

Turkey was hit by a series of terror attacks in 2015 and 2016 blamed on the Islamic State extremist group and Kurdish militants, which left hundreds dead.

The last major attack was the New Year massacre by a gunman at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul just minutes into 2017 which killed 39 people.