Blast shuts down Iran-Turkey gas pipeline amid mounting tensions

An explosion overnight on Monday suspended the transport of gas along a pipeline connecting Turkey and Iran in the eastern Turkish province of Agri, Ankara’s energy minister said

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but Turkish media pointed the finger at the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“The explosion caused a fire. But we managed to put it out quickly. The transportation of gas will resume when the pipeline is repaired,” Taner Yildiz said in a statement, according to state-run news agency Anatolia.

The PKK has fought a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Turkey, and is regarded as a terrorist organisation by both Ankara and Washington.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday promised to press ahead with military operations against the PKK until the group disarmed.

The separatist group had claimed or been blamed for a series of attacks in recent weeks.

Gunmen shot dead a paramilitary police commander late on Monday in a predominantly Kurdish part of eastern Turkey. No one claimed responsibility for the assault, but suspicion fell on the PKK.

On Sunday, the PKK’s military wing claimed the killing of two Turkish soldiers in a car bombing in Diyarbakir province.

And last week, two Turkish policemen were shot dead in their beds in the southeast, killings claimed by the PKK.

The PKK has said a truce between the government and the militants that has largely held since 2013, while peace talks were ongoing, has been rendered meaningless by Turkey’s air strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

The airstrikes came on the heels of a stepped up Turkish campaign against Islamic State group militants on the Syrian-Turkish border, and as NATO is set to hold a rare emergency meeting at Ankara’s request to discuss the Islamic State threat.

Turkey and the United States agreed Monday on the outlines of a plan to rout the Islamic State group from a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border.

While the plan opened up the possibility of a safe haven for tens of thousands of displaced Syrians, it also set up a potential conflict with US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces in the area.

Syria’s main Kurdish militia — the YPG or the People’s Protection Units — is affiliated with the PKK, though the US regards the PKK as a terrorist group.

US State Department spokesman John Kirby emphasized that “Turkey has a right to defend itself” against the PKK.

The Kurdish fighters in Syria, who have been the most successful in the war against the Islamic State, control most of the 565 miles boundary with Turkey, and have warned Ankara against any military intervention in northern Syria.

The Obama administration official said the US-led coalition was looking to anti-Islamic State forces such as Syrian Kurds and the Free Syrian Army. He did not elaborate.

In a series of cross border strikes since Friday, Turkey has not only targeted the Islamic State group but also Kurdish fighters affiliated with forces battling the extremists in Syria and Iraq.

Also, the YPG and an activist group said Turkish troops had shelled the Syrian border village of Til Findire, targeting Kurdish fighters and hitting one of their vehicles on Sunday night. The village is east of the border town of Kobani, where the Kurds handed a major defeat to the Islamic State group earlier this year.

But Turkish officials dismissed the claims from YPG that they had been targeting Kurdish fighters, insisting their forces were only targeting the Islamic State group in Syria, and the PKK in neighboring Iraq.

Ege Seckin, a Turkey expert at IHS Country Risk, said the Islamic State is a national security threat for Turkey, but was nonetheless secondary.

“The two key points in Turkey remain: one — topple the Assad regime, and two — prevent the establishment of a continuous Kurdish territorial entity in the region,” he said.