Erdogan Will Visit Iraq Next Month...And Reveal The Latest Negotiations To Export The Region's Oil
Time: 09/06/2023 Read: 1,950 times Source: {Politics: Al Furat News} Sources said that it is not expected to resume pumping Iraqi oil to Turkey before next October, during which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely to visit Baghdad, after postponing the visit that was initially planned to take place last August. .
Turkey suspended export flows from northern Iraq on March 25 after an ICC ruling in an arbitration case required Ankara to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in compensation for allowing KRG oil exports without permission between 2014 and 2018.
Iraq filed a petition in April with a US federal court to enforce the decision by the International Chamber of Commerce. The sources said that the lack of progress in settling this lawsuit was one of the reasons behind the postponement of Erdogan's visit to Baghdad in August.
A senior Turkish official said Erdogan still plans to visit Baghdad and "wants to sign an agreement," but "so far Iraq has not taken the concrete steps expected of it," which has led to a lack of progress.
The source added that one of the steps that Ankara is seeking is to stop the lawsuit in the United States, and that is why Erdogan is scheduled to visit Iraq in October.
An official at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had not yet received a specific timetable from Ankara regarding the expected date of Erdogan's visit to Iraq.
He added that Erdogan may visit Iraq at the end of this month or most likely in October, indicating that this will depend on the success of the talks related to energy issues, which require longer than expected due to the multiplicity of thorny issues.
An Iraqi oil official familiar with the talks said energy officials in Baghdad and Ankara were "holding complex discussions" and that resuming flows was "the hardest issue". He ruled out the resumption of flows this month.
Two Iraqi oil officials familiar with the talks said Turkey was also seeking a compromise to reduce compensation to Iraq for damages under the ICC arbitration award.
Iraqi sources said earlier that Turkey wants Iraq to drop a second arbitration case related to exports covering the period from 2018 onwards.
The Turkish Energy Ministry has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Two informed sources said that the Iraqi Kurdistan government has lost about four billion dollars since the stoppage of oil flows to the Turkish port of Ceyhan through a pipeline. LINK
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