ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani was in Ankara Monday for important talks on oil exports and revenues, officials said.
Safeen Dizayee, spokesman of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), told Rudaw that the visit could mean Kurdish civil servants finally getting paid at the end of this month, after going without salaries since Baghdad froze budget payments early this year.
“We requested that Turkey import more Kurdish oil,” Dizayee said. He revealed that current exports were 120,000 barrels per day (bpd), and that “we will try to raise the rate to 400,000 bpd by the end of the year.”
Despite the fact it has at least $93 million in its account at Halkbank, a state-owned Turkish bank, the KRG has not been able to withdraw earnings from the sale of oil exported via a new pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Due to ongoing disputes over the legality of KRG’s independent oil sales, the Turkish government had been waiting for an agreement between Erbil and Baghdad over how to divide the revenue.
Such an agreement looks out of reach for the moment: Kurdish cabinet members have boycotted participation in the Iraqi government following Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s accusation that Kurds are harboring terrorist leaders in Erbil. Meanwhile, efforts to form a new government in Baghdad have been unsuccessful.
Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz told reporters that Barzani and his delegation were in Ankara “to convert their temporary account at Halkbank into a permanent one.”
“This is necessary for the continuation of oil exports,” he said. “The claims of their being here to take back their share of oil revenues are not true, but that might come up in the future, of course," he explained.
The Kurdish delegation is likely to secure arrangements over oil sales despite Baghdad’s opposition.
Shortly after arriving, Barzani discussed events in Iraq and the Middle East with President Abdullah Gul, with talks scheduled for later in the day with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmed Davotuglu.
He is accompanied by three ministers: his chief of staff Fuad Hussein, interior minister Karim Sinjari and Peshmerga minister Mustafa Saeed Qadir.
Bilateral political and diplomatic issues are also expected to be among topics discussed between Kurdish and Turkish officials, in addition to the kidnapping of 49 Turkish consulate staff in Mosul by Islamic State militants.
This is the first time a Kurdish delegation has included military officials of the KRG, which may indicate deeper Erbil-Ankara security ties after the fall of Mosul last month.
Despite opposition from Baghdad and Washington, Turkey and the KRG have deepened political and energy ties over the past several years.
Meanwhile, the KRG began importing refined fuel from Turkey Monday to relieve a fuel crisis caused by a disruption in deliveries since jihadi-led insurgents began an advance a month ago that has seen them take over a third of the country.
Turkey has also hinted that it would accept an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, if Iraqi parties would not agree on a formula to form a true national partnership government.
Turkey’s peace process with its significantly large Kurdish population is still ongoing, with the Kurdish Workers’ Party members (PKK) withdrawing to Iraqi Kurdistan’s Qandil mountains.
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