Turkish officials said the blast injured 28 Turkish troops who were passing nearby in a truck when the bomb went off.
The blast severed the pipe and ended deliveries of Iranian gas. The severance came just five days after the pipeline had been reopened following an October 8 bombing of the pipeline.
Previously the pipeline had been bombed June 28.
The bombers are assumed to be members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is battling the Turkish government. Many Turks say the Islamic Republic is helping the PKK because of the poor relations between Iran and Turkey, chiefly over Syria.
Pipeline interruptions are normally quite brief. It isn’t difficult to repair a pipeline. The June bombing interrupted service only five days and the October 8 damage was repaired in six days.
But if the two bombings in a month mean the PKK plans to attack the pipeline more frequently, that could change the equation.
Ironically, the pipe bombings could do more harm to Iran than Turkey. As a result, the Islamic Republic may choose to lean on the PKK to stop the bombings.
There are other pipelines from Azerbaijan and Russia that bring natural gas to Turkey. Those lines have excess capacity and more gas is routinely pumped through them after a bombing along the Iranian pipeline, which passes through Kurdish populated territory for a few hundred miles. Consequently, Turkey doesn’t really suffer from the bombings.
Furthermore, Turkey is required to pay more for Iranian gas than for Azerbaijani or Russian gas. And it must pay for a certain amount of gas as long as the pipeline is functioning. As a result, the bombings allow Turkey to buy cheaper gas from Azerbaijan and Russia while reducing Iranian revenues.
In fact, Iran complained last year that Turkey was stalling on the repair of the pipeline in order to reduce its buy of Iranian gas.
In September 2011, Iran said it would demand compensation from Turkey for what it asserted were unacceptable delays in making repairs to the pipeline.
Javad Oji, the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Co., was quoted by the daily Iran as saying there had been four pipeline interruptions so far that year.
Mehr quoted him as saying, “Since the provision of security on Turkish territory is the responsibility of that country and such incidents have happened several times, Botas [the Turkish state pipeline company] has to compensate for the delays.”
Oji did not point out that Iran has repeatedly halted deliveries to Turkey in the middle of the winter when communities in northwestern Iran need the gas for heat. The pipeline that delivers gas to Turkey also supplies the northwest of Iran. There is plenty of gas for both countries in the summer, but not in the depths of winter cold.