ISTANBUL – Turkey began unblocking Instagram Saturday evening after depriving access to millions of users for nine days.

“Following our negotiations with representatives of Instagram, we will unblock access starting from 9:30 pm (1830 GMT) after they agreed to respond to our demands,” transport and infrastructure minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on X. 

Instagram access began to progressively return after that time, AFP reporters noted.

“Since the beginning, we have wanted social media platforms to respect the laws of the Republic,” Uraloglu insisted.

The platform had been blocked since the morning of August 2 for reasons that were never fully explained.

Saturday evening the minister mentioned “violations linked to content”, adding that Instagram had refused to delete thousands of posts involving “gambling, drugs and abuse of children”. 

Meta, the owner of Instagram, denied not cooperating, saying it had withdrawn almost 2,500 posts in the first half of the year at the request of Turkish authorities.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, accused Instagram of blocking messages of condolence for Ismael Haniyeh, political leader of the Palestinian group Hamas and a close ally of Erdogan’s. 

Haniyeh was killed in Tehran last month in an attack blamed on Israel.

Between 60 and 70 percent of Turkey’s 85 million inhabitants have an Instagram account, and about $57 million of business is carried out on the site each day, according to Emre Ekmekci, vice-president of an e-commerce association.

Access to the online game Roblox, particularly popular in Turkey, remained blocked for a fourth day Saturday evening. –AFP