ANKARA

Attempts to restore power across Turkey are continuing after a power cut hit the country earlier on Tuesday.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said about 90 percent of electricity had been restored to Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. The minister has been updating the public via live broadcast from Slovakia, where he is on an official visit.

The electricity outages in many regions are due to problems in transmission lines, the Turkish Electricity Transmission Company, TEIAS, said earlier.

Thrace, the Black Sea and Eastern Anatolia regions of the country have seen power restored while problems continue in Izmir, Ankara, the Mediterranean and Aegean regions, Yildiz said.

“Crowded places such as metro stations have been given electricity and we believe the rest of the country should be fully powered shortly,” he added.

TEIAS has started a technical investigation.

Yildiz's said that the cause is as yet unknown and was unable to either confirm or deny if it was a cyber attack which caused the outage.

He said that what is important is to get transmission back up and running to all regions from a crisis center based in the Golbasi district of Ankara.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that all possibilities are under investigation, including a possible terrorist angle.