ISTANBUL — Turkey said Saturday that it was lifting a ban on YouTube more than two years after it blocked access to the site because of videos deemed insulting to the country’s founder.
Transport Minister Binali Yildirim, who is in charge of Internet issues, said the government has been in touch with Google, which owns YouTube. There was no longer any reason to ban the video-sharing site, he said, as the offending videos had been removed.
Turkey’s telecommunications authority banned access to YouTube in May 2008 after users complained that some videos insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the country in 1923. It is a crime in Turkey to insult Ataturk.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 10/31/2010