Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline have been halted since March 2023 after a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying the latter had breached a 1973 pipeline agreement by allowing Erbil to begin independent oil exports in 2014.
“The work that we continue to do with officials in Baghdad, with officials in Ankara, and with the KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government] on the reopening of the ITP [Iraq-Turkey pipeline], which is an energy asset that the United States very much wishes to see brought back online, because of the critical role that it provides in helping to sustain the energy economy of the KRG,” Geoffrey Pyatt, Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, told Rudaw in a press briefing.
Pyatt stressed that energy issues “will be the front and center when the Iraqi prime minister comes here to the United States.”
The Iraqi oil ministry on Monday blamed international oil companies (IOCs) in the Kurdistan Region for not reopening the pipeline, stressing that halting the process was not the decision of Baghdad and that the federal government is “the most affected” by the halt in exports.
“What I will underline is that the Iraqi government is interested in attracting more foreign investment to its energy sector, and in particular, to modernize the energy sector and make it cleaner and to maximize the availability of energy for Iraqi citizens,” Pyatt said, adding that such a task will be difficult to achieve if the Iraq-Turkey pipeline remains shut.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken received Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein in Washington. According to Pyatt, energy issues dominated the conversations between the two top diplomats.
