DHAKA: The Turkish government banned YouTube on Thursday, less than a week after Ankara made a similar blackout of the social networking site Twitter, which is estimated to have more than 10 million Turkish users.

Neither website can be reached on Turkish Internet networks, report the CNN.

The crackdown comes just days before Turks are expected to go to the polls in nationwide municipal elections.

The Turkish government said its YouTube block came as a response to the leak of a conversation between top government officials purportedly discussing the possibility of going to war with neighboring Syria.

Turkey`s top media regulating agency announced a similar ban on the broadcast of the conversation to television and radio channels.

"It is seen as appropriate that a temporary broadcast ban be implemented on the voice recordings on social media and alleged to be between the foreign minister, the head of the National Intelligence Agency and military officials," the Radio and Television Supreme Council -- Turkey`s chief media regulating agency -- announced on its website.

Turkey`s political elite has been battered by a campaign of wiretap leaks recorded by unknown operatives and distributed daily for more than a month on the Internet.

Until Wednesday, all of the wiretaps seemed to be recordings of phone conversations between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his inner circle, government officials and some top corporate executives.

Erdogan has called some recordings "immorally edited material," including a conversation in which a man who sounds like the Prime Minister purportedly instructs his son to hide tens of millions of dollars in cash from police investigators.

BDST: 0927 HRS, MAR 28 , 2014