Fire-damaged Turkey pipeline to be fixed 'in a week'

A major pipeline running from Iraq to Turkey that was allegedly sabotaged in a fire on Friday should be back up and running in a week, Anatolia news agency reported.

Citing the team of repair workers hired by the Turkish oil company BOTAS, Anatolia said Tuesday that oil flow in the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline -- which carries Iraqi crude to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan from where it is transported to world markets -- would be back to normal in the next seven days.

Oil flow in the 970-kilometre- (600-mile-) long pipeline was cut immediately after the fire broke out between the villages of Sogutlu and Senkoy in southeastern Turkey.

Turkey's army has since cleared the zone of any explosives and cooled down the pipeline, Anatolia said, ahead of further repair work.

Turkish officials blamed the fire on the Kurdistan Peoples' Party or PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and by much of the international community.

The group took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.

The pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was last attacked at the end of June.