ANKARA: A powerful explosion at a natural gas pipeline that brings gas from Iran to Turkey has halted supply to the country.
Flames caused by the explosion on Tuesday at the eastern border city of Agri were visible from nearby villages.
Iranian officials believe that the explosion near the Gurbulak border gate with Iran was caused by a terrorist attack. Turkish security forces are investigating the cause of the incident.
“The pipeline has exploded several times in the past. It is also likely that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has carried out the blast,” Mehdi Jamshidi-Dana, director of National Iranian Gas Co., told Iran’s state news agency IRNA. Turkish border guards left the area as a precautionary measure against the coronavirus pandemic. Jamshidi-Dana implied that the terrorists took advantage of this security vacuum.
Following the blast, a member of the outlawed PKK was killed in an operation carried out by Turkish border units while he was trying to cross into Turkey through Iran.
In early March, Turkish security forces launched another operation to track attackers near the Iranian border after one Turkish customs agent was murdered and several others were wounded by a rocket attack that hit an armored bus carrying customs staff.
Kurdish militants from the PKK have occasionally attacked oil and gas pipelines coming from Iraq and Iran.
The same line was closed over a PKK attack in July 2015, while a subsequent attack in April 2018 was prevented by Turkish security forces.
Turkey is among the few customers of Iranian gas, although Iran’s total natural gas export to Turkey is dropping each year. Turkey imported 7.7 billion cubic meters of gas from Iran in 2019, equivalent to 17 percent of its total gas imports.
The pipeline’s repair works are expected to take about four days before gas exports can resume.
Earlier this month, Turkish-Iranian land and air borders were sealed over the coronavirus outbreak.
Huge blast at Iran-Turkey pipeline halts gas supply
https://arab.news/76u2u
Huge blast at Iran-Turkey pipeline halts gas supply
- Kurdish militants from the PKK have occasionally attacked oil and gas pipelines coming from Iraq and Iran
Israel says carrying out ‘large-scale strikes’ on Tehran
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it launched “large-scale strikes” on Tehran on Monday, two days since the start of a US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
“The Israeli Air Force... has begun an additional wave of strikes against the Iranian terror regime at the heart of Tehran,” the military said in a statement.
Israei's new “large-scale” strikes followed mile fire from Iran that injured three people in Jerusalem late on Sunday.
“A direct impact of a munition was identified on one of the main roads in Jerusalem,” police said in a statement, sharing footage showing officers at a highway section littered with rubble.
Israel’s emergency medical service Magen David Adom said three people were injured, including a 46-year-old man with moderate shrapnel wounds.
The medical organization earlier said several others were treated for light injuries at the site.
AFP journalists heard a series of loud blasts above the city, after the Israeli military said it had detected missiles launched from Iran.
Israel’s Kan public television and Channel 12 broadcast footage showing police officers and rescuers deployed in areas where visible damage could be seen, one “in the center of the country” and the other in the Jerusalem area.
In the Jerusalem area, the footage showed a road strewn with debris and rocks.
In the center of the country, damaged cars could be seen.
Military censorship prohibits the media from disclosing the exact locations of the impact sites.
In other developments:
• The European Union has warned of the cost to the Middle East of a long war, and said it was reinforcing its naval mission in the Red Sea with additional vessels as Iran’s retaliation to US-Israeli strikes threatens maritime traffic, a European diplomat said.
Two new French ships will join the EU’s Aspides mission, bringing to five the number of warships taking part, the diplomat told AFP.
• Gulf states vowed to defend themselves against Iranian attacks, including by “responding to the aggression” if need be, after the Gulf Cooperation Council convened via video-link to formulate a unified response.
• Top US officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio will make the case Tuesday to Congress for the attack on Iran. Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and military chief General Dan Caine “will brief the full membership of both chambers of Congress,” White House spokesman Dylan Johnson said.
• Container shipping company Maersk said it was halting passage through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz for “safety” reasons.
The Danish group was the latest of several shipping groups to make similar announcements after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards declared the strait closed on Saturday.
• Seven people were injured in the Jerusalem area following the latest salvo of missiles fired from Iran, Israeli firefighters said.
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had agreed to let the United States use UK bases to fire “defensive” strikes aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and their launchers. But in a video address posted to social media, he added: “We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and we will not join offensive action now.
• Iranian media reported that a police station in a city on the outskirts of Tehran had been hit, killing an unspecified number of people, with others reportedly trapped under debris. “According to initial reports, a number of citizens were martyred and some were trapped under the rubble,” the Tasnim news agency reported.
• Iranian news agency ISNA reported that Gandhi hospital in northern Tehran had been targeted by strikes. The Fars and Mizan agencies published a video, presented as being from inside the facility, showing debris on the floor among wheelchairs.
