Ardakanian was in Baghdad on Tuesday to hammer out differences over Iran’s export of natural gas, and Iraqi debt repayments to Iranian state energy companies that are either delayed or cannot be accessed due to US banking sanctions on Tehran.
“Despite the restrictions in this area, fortunately the Ministry of Electricity of Iraq and the state officials succeeded in paying a considerable part of the claims to Tavanir Company as well as parts of the claims of the National Gas Company,” Ardakanian was quoted as saying by the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency.
“A good agreement has been reached in this regard and this agreement is being prepared for signature so to speed up the process of withdrawing from financial funds to buy goods and services.”
The meeting in Baghdad comes after Iran substantially slashed its natural gas export to Iraq, threatening to plunge part of the country into darkness. The spokesperson for Iraq’s electricity ministry said on Sunday that Iran had slashed its natural gas exports from 50 million cubic meters (mcm) a day to just three mcm – cutting the amount of electricity Iraq can produce by up to a third.
The two countries also agreed to allow Tehran to tap into the funds it has in Iraq in order to buy the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.
Iran is among the world’s worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, but its officials have said that sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States since 2018 are making acquisition of coronavirus vaccine doses difficult.
“Iran has substantial amount of funds abroad including in Iraq… with some considerations in mind, the health ministry could purchase the required dosage of the coronavirus vaccine from the European company and pay the costs from these funds.”
Iran trialled a domestically produced vaccine on Tuesday, state television reported. Another Iran-produced vaccine will be approved for trials “in the very near future”, health minister Saeed Namaki said.
Tuesday’s meeting also saw two projects for Iran to help rebuild Iraq’s electricity infrastructure finalised.
Iran has agreed to the immediate resumption of natural gas exports to Iraq, the Iraqi state’s al-Sabaah newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The newspaper reported Ardakanian as saying that gas supply had been cut “for technical reasons” – contradicting a National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) statement that said the reduction in the export of natural gas was because Baghdad had failed to pay off its debts.
“Iraq’s electricity ministry is in debt of more than five billion dollars,” the NIGC said on Monday. “Despite several contractual warnings, unfortunately ignored by the Iraqi side… this company has resorted to reducing the volume of gas exported.”
