Category: Turkey

Photo Officers conducted searches of young people during a security operation this month in the southeastern town of Diyarbakir. Credit Usame Ari/Associated Press DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Across the Kurdish lands of southeast Turkey , a bitter war that had long been stilled by a truce has suddenly come roaring back, threatening to undo a hard-won economic turnaround here and adding a new battlefield to a region already consumed by chaos. Cafes in this city that usually stay open until midnight now close at dusk. Jails are filling, once again, with Kurdish activists and officials accused of supporting terrorism. Residents say they are stocking up on weapons, just in case. In the mountains, Kurdish guerrillas hastily set up vehicle checkpoints and then dissolve into the rugged terrain in a game of cat and mouse with Turkish soldiers. In the countryside, burned and mangled vehicles blight a landscape blackened by forest […]

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Gas flow on the Shah Deniz pipeline carrying natural gas from Azerbaijan was halted by an explosion in Turkey on Monday evening, energy sector officials said, with one saying it was thought Kurdish militants had sabotaged the pipeline. The officials told Reuters that gas flow had been halted on Aug. 3 due to maintenance and had only resumed on Aug. 23 but had not yet reached capacity before Monday’s blast. "Last night there was an explosion in the pipeline on the Turkish side and the flow stopped," one senior official said. Another official said damage assessment was set to begin on Tuesday and that it would not be clear when the gas flow would resume until after the assessment. An explosion had previously hit the pipeline on Aug. 4, after the flow had already been suspended for maintenance. That was days after an attack by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) […]

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ISTANBUL—Turkish police and the U.S. consulate in Istanbul have been hit in a string of deadly attacks starting early Monday, as the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies deepen their cooperation against Islamic State and Turkey intensifies its fight against Kurdish militants. A police station in the city’s Sultanbeyli neighborhood was struck by a suicide car-bombing at about 1 a.m. local time, injuring three policemen and seven civilians, the Istanbul Police Department said in a statement. Less than six hours later, two assailants and one police officer were killed at a gunfight that erupted when the station drew fire. The U.S. consulate in the city’s Sariyer neighborhood was attacked in shortly after the assaults on the police, with two people opening fire and prompting a clash between the attackers and police. There were no injuries or deaths, and one of the assailants has been caught, according to Turkey’s state-run […]

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Saboteurs attacked on July 29 a pipeline transporting crude oil between the Iraqi city of Kirkuk and the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, halting the flow of oil, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said, Anadolu Agency and Reuters reported. The attack, which took place near the Iraqi border in Turkey’s Sirnak province, comes a day after militants attacked a natural gas pipeline in Agri province, near the Iranian border. The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq relies on part of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline for its own exports. The pipeline has been carrying around 300,000 barrels of oil per day, down from its maximum operational capacity of 400,000 barrels daily, because of other recent attacks, according to Iraqi government figures. As it commits to operations in Syria and Iraq, Ankara is stepping up its fight against the Kurds — a move that could have unintended consequences south of the border . […]

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Turkish gendarme forces patrol the road leading to the jetty at the Ceyhan crude oil terminal on July 13, 2006. (FATIH SARIBAS/Reuters) The export pipeline in Turkey carrying crude from Iraq is expected to restart by Thursday after two acts of sabotage this week, including an incident Wednesday that Turkish officials are calling a bomb attack.Officials from Iraq’s North Oil Company (NOC) and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as well as industry officials close to the operations of the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP), said smuggling operations in Urfa, roughly 370 kilometers from the Iraqi border, took the line d… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

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Turkish struggles with militant campaigns spills over into energy sector, with two pipelines bombed in two days. File Photo by Ebrahem Khadir/ UPI ANKARA, Turkey, July 29 (UPI) — For the second consecutive day, pipelines running through southern Turkey have become the target of militant campaigns drawing attention from NATO. Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Wednesday a section of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline, running from northern Iraq to Turkish ports, was bombed in southern Sirnak province. "Just after the explosion we’ve closed the oil valves to stop extra oil flow," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu News Agency. "We have taken measures and the attack won’t have an effect on oil supply and demand." The pipeline from northern Iraq has a maximum capacity of around 400,000 barrels of oil per day. The bombing comes one day after an attack on a natural gas pipeline running […]

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