Turkey turns off Kurdish Rudaw channel in wake of referendum

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey took the Kurdish television channel Rudaw off its satellite service TurkSat, a Turkish broadcasting official told Reuters, in the country's first response to a Kurdish independence referendum that began on Monday in northern Iraq.

Turkey vowed to take several steps against the Kurds if the referendum in the Kurdish Regional Government were held. Among those was cutting off the flow of oil from northern Iraq through Turkey to international markets.
An official at the Turkish Higher Authority for Broadcasts said Rudaw was being removed from the satellite provider, but Rudaw wasn't aware of it.
"We have only heard about the decision through the media. TurkSat has not notified us yet. So we are still on air, but the broadcast may be halted when we are notified," a Rudaw television official told Reuters.

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Ercan Gurses; Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Larry King)