Turkish FM: Iraq Oil Pipeline Fire Was SabotageANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Friday sabotage had caused a fire in the Iraqi section of a pipeline carrying oil to Turkey.
U.S. engineers said earlier there was a fire on the main oil export pipeline from the Kirkuk oilfields in northern Iraq to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, but said it was due to a gas leak.
Gul did not specify the source of his information.
"Unfortunately there was sabotage there. Right now there is an investigation and evaluation but we haven't yet had a report on the size and dimensions of the business. It will become clear this evening," Gul told reporters in Ankara.
It was not yet clear whether the fire had been put out.
The 600-mile pipeline had a capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day, but was only just beginning to resume operations after the U.S.-led war.
Despite pressure from the United States and local Kurds for it to pull out, Turkey keeps a military force in northern Iraq to crack down on Kurdish rebels based there and monitor the local Kurdish administration.
Having fought Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq since 1984, Turkey sees the region as crucial to its own security.
A US trooper accompanied by Iraqi police in their newly reacquired AK-47s and bullet-proof vests, guard confiscated chemicals and equipment which are being sold at a public market in Baghdad, Iraq on Thursday, June 12, 2003. Looters still abound around the capital as the US forces try to restore order following the fall of Saddam Hussein.
"I get numerous individual requests for a pistol, a rifle or a grenade, and it's same day delivery," he says.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, weapons are everywhere in Iraq, left over from the disbanded army or looted from government storehouses. People are not only hoarding them, they're buying — and the market is ready to meet the demand.
"An order for tens of rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other similar weapons is usually delivered within 24 hours," says Hussein, 26, who packs a pistol hidden underneath his shirt "for personal protection. We have no security."