Turkey suddenly reinstates access to Instagram after more than a week

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey reinstated access to Instagram on Saturday night, after more than a week of being blocked nationwide.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority barred access to Instagram on Aug. 2 without providing a specific reason. Government officials later said the ban was imposed because the social media platform failed to abide by Turkish laws.

“In our talks with Instagram officials, we were assured our requests would be met, especially those regarding criminal activity, and given a promise that we would work together on a means of censoring users,” Abdulkadir Uraloglu, Turkey’s transportation and infrastructure minister wrote on the social media platform X Saturday.

Uraloglu elaborated in a video also posted on X, saying that the platform “was to establish compliance with Turkish law and that in instances where the law was violated, there would be quick and effective intervention.”

He added that all accounts owned by “terrorist” organizations would be banned and all content promoting such organizations would be removed, singling out the PKK, PYD and FETO.

The PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, is an outlawed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency within Turkey to establish an autonomous region in southeastern Turkey. The PYD is a Syrian Kurdish political organization that Turkish officials claim is an arm of the PKK. FETO is the movement led by Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that the government blames for a failed coup attempt in 2016.

Instagram has more than 57 million users in Turkey, a nation of 85 million people, according to We Are Social Media, a digital marketing news company based in New York.

The Electronic Commerce Operators’ Association estimates that Instagram and other social media platforms per day generate about 930 million Turkish lira ($27 million) worth of e-commerce.