Türk Telekom denies puting Syria offline

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Hürriyet

Türk Telekom has denied media reports that it cut its Internet service in war-torn Syria in August.

“Media reports titled ‘Turkey has unplugged Syria’ that were published by some newspapers and Internet news sites and claimed that Türk Telekom had cut its Internet connection with Syria do not reflect the truth. It is beside the point that Türk Telekom has any interference in Internet disconnections in Syria,” a written statement from the company said yesterday.

“There have been disconnections in the services we, Türk Telekom, provide for the [company] Syrica Teleceom since Aug. 11, 2012. But the problem arises from Syria’s own fiber optic infrastructure on the whole,” the statement read.

According to the Internet intelligence firm Renesys, Turkey had halted Internet access service to Syria, possibly due to the tensions between the two countries, daily Milliyet reported yesterday. Reports said Internet service, which had been provided to the embattled country by Türk Telekom, was cut off on Aug. 12.

Hong Kong-based PCCW Ltd. is now carrying most of the Internet traffic to and from Syria, according to Renesys, a Manchester company that studies the structure of the Internet., the AssociatedPress reported on Aug. 22.