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| The Grand Turk |
| Kurd rebels blow up Iran-Turkey gas pipeline |
| 2010-07-22 |
| ANKARA — Suspected Kurdish rebels blew up a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran to Turkey, forcing the shutdown of the conduit, officials said Wednesday. The powerful blast occurred overnight at a section of the pipeline near the eastern Turkish town of Dogubayazit, in Agri province, several kilometres (miles) from the Iranian border, a local official told AFP by telephone, without giving other details. “The explosion is believed to have been carried out by members of the separatist terrorist organisation,” Agri Governor Ali Yerlikaya said in a statement, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Security forces were looking for the perpetrators, said the statement, carried by Anatolia news agency. Television footage showed a large blaze raging over the pipeline after the blast which Anatolia said shattered the windows of nearby buildings. The explosion cut the flow of Iranian gas, but an official at Turkey’s state oil and gas company BOTAS ruled out a supply shortage, saying that gas coming via pipelines from Russia and Azerbaijan was meeting the needs. “There is no problem at the moment,” she told AFP. Repairs at the damaged section of the Iranian conduit were expected to take about a week, she said, adding that the fire had been extinguished by Wednesday. Russian energy giant Gazprom said Wednesday that it was increasing supplies to make up for the shortfall. Gazprom has increased its deliveries from 14 million cubic metres per day to 22 million cubic metres, the statement said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #5 Go Kurds! |
| Posted by: Hellfish 2010-07-22 12:37 |
| #4 wonder how many Kurds have been killed by Iranian , Turkish AND Iraqi troops over the years? Also look at how well Kirkuk turned their city around very soon after the Iraqi war started. I think there should bee and independent Kurd state. They seem too wanna do better for themselves instead of taking handouts like the rest. Also hitting the pipeline hits the pocketbooks of the mullahs, so would hitting a power plant in Iraq or Iran be a civilian target too in a time of war? |
| Posted by: chris 2010-07-22 10:07 |
| #3 Years before the Iraq war, it could be foreseen that eventually the Kurds were going to become a serious problem. Because even though divided mostly between Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, they were a major pain to all four of those countries. The key difference between them and other restive minorities was that the Kurds were smart enough to realize that they could never militarily force their way into having a Kurdistan. So instead they went for western schooling to figure out other ways to get and keep a nation for themselves. This paid off in spades with the formation of Iraqi Kurdistan, so now the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iran are, albeit quietly, redoubling their efforts for at first autonomy, the then unification with Iraqi Kurdistan. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-07-22 10:04 |
| #2 The PKK has been responsible for thousands of civilian deaths over the past 4 decades; some were incidental to attacks on military targets but some were purely against civilian targets. It is true that recent PKK killings have been mostly of Turkish military personnel. But pipeline sabotage goes back into the anti civilian territory. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2010-07-22 08:20 |
| #1 I know the PKK is supposed too be a terrorist org. But I think I klinda like them. What's the saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend? |
| Posted by: chris 2010-07-22 01:19 |