Party Convoy in Turkey Is Fired on, Killing Officer

The attack came after Mr. Erdogan had left the convoy. It was unclear whether he had been the intended target.

Less than an hour earlier, he had addressed a rally in Kastamonu, a city near the Black Sea about 150 miles north of Ankara.

At the time of the attack, Mr. Erdogan was in the nearby town of Amasya for another campaign event, said the governor of Kastamonu Province, Erdogan Bektas. The prime minister then left the area by helicopter, Mr. Bektas said.

In remarks delivered in Amasya, Mr. Erdogan condemned the political violence and appeared to allude to a separatist motive for the attack, though he stopped short of naming any group. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

“Call them whatever you want, these terrorists, these separatist powers, those who realize that they cannot handle their business at ballot boxes, think that they can achieve results only this way,” the Anatolian News Agency reported Mr. Erdogan as saying.

Since the 1980s, the Turkish government and armed Kurdish separatists known as the P.K.K. have engaged in a protracted struggle that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

“Nobody should seek for alternate ways except the ballot box,” Mr. Erdogan said.

Turkey is heading for parliamentary elections in June with Mr. Erdogan’s pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party, buoyed by a robust economy, expected to win a third term as the majority government.

The attackers aimed at police vehicles escorting the prime minister’s election bus, which carried officials from Mr. Erdogan’s party, the NTV television network reported. A large number of ambulances were sent to the area.

Gunfire caused one of the police vehicles to explode, Mr. Bektas said. Earlier news reports, citing witnesses, had indicated grenades were used in the attack.