Iraq, Turkey discuss oil exports resumption through Ceyhan
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuad Hussein, and his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, discussed on Sunday the resumption of Iraqi Kurdistan's oil exports through the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
The two ministers met on the sidelines of their participation in the 51st session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held in the Turkish city of Istanbul, according to a statement released by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.
Hussein stressed the need to expedite technical and administrative procedures to resume oil flows from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to Ceyhan.
Due to financial and legal issues, crude oil shipments through the Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline, which previously accounted for approximately 0.5 percent of the world's oil supply, have been suspended since March 2023.
After the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris ruled that Ankara had violated a 1973 treaty by permitting oil exports without the approval of the federal government in Baghdad, oil flows via the Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline were stopped.
The ruling obligated Turkey to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in compensation for losses caused by the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) illegal oil exports between 2014 and 2018.
Earlier in March, negotiations to restart oil flows from Iraqi Kurdistan through the Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline failed for the second time in a week. This setback was attributed to ongoing disagreements between oil companies and the Iraqi Oil Ministry, according to Reuters.
In February, Hussein revealed that Baghdad is collaborating with the KRG to resolve technical issues and resume crude oil exports to Turkey, which had been suspended for almost two years and cost Iraq around $19 billion in lost revenue.
The legislative structure is in place, but before oil flows can restart, oil firms, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and the federal government need to resolve technical issues, Hussein told Bloomberg.
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