Iran resumed pumping natural gas to Turkey on Saturday after a one-day halt following a blast on the pipeline, an official was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

"The export of gas to Turkey, halted due to explosion, was resumed today," Fars quoted the spokesman of the National Iranian Gas Company, Majid Boujarzadeh, as saying.

Fars said Kurdish rebel group PJAK was believed to have been behind the blast on Friday . Sabotage is common on pipelines leading into Turkey from Iran and Iraq, where Kurdish separatist militants are based.

Iranian security forces have regularly fought rebels from PJAK which also has bases in the border provinces of neighbouring Iraq.

PJAK is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which took up arms in 1984 to fight for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey. Both Tehran and Washington have called PJAK a terrorist organisation.

Iran is Turkey's second biggest supplier of natural gas after Russia. – Reuters