The office of Iraqi Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Zahra announced that he arrived in Turkey to discuss various issues, including the resumption of oil exports via the Ceyhan port. An Iraqi embassy statement in Ankara mentioned that the visit aims "to hold discussions related to developing bilateral relations and expanding cooperation in the fields of oil, gas, and energy, as well as addressing the issue of restarting Iraqi oil exports through the Turkish Ceyhan port."
The statement noted that Minister Abdul Zahra will meet with Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Fatih Dönmez and several Turkish officials to reaffirm Iraq's commitment to building bridges of trust and cooperation, ultimately reaching an agreement on resuming the process of exporting Iraqi oil exclusively via the State Oil Marketing Organization "SOMO."
Turkey halted Iraq's exports of 450,000 barrels per day through the Iraq-Turkey northern pipeline on March 25 after a ruling in an arbitration case from the International Chamber of Commerce. Iraq had filed a lawsuit with the ICC arbitration body in Paris in 2014 concerning Turkey's role in facilitating oil exports from the Kurdistan region without the approval of the federal government in Baghdad.
The Iraqi federal government claims that the state-owned SOMO is the sole authorized body to manage crude oil exports through the Ceyhan port. Iraq stated that Ankara and the state-owned Turkish energy company Botas violated the terms of the Iraq-Turkey pipeline agreement signed in 1973 by transporting and storing oil from Kurdistan and loading it onto tankers in Ceyhan without Baghdad's consent.
Turkey seeks to negotiate the amount of compensation that the arbitration body ordered it to pay, while also requesting clarification on other pending arbitration issues. The arbitration panel ordered Turkey to pay approximately $1.5 billion in compensation to Baghdad for unauthorized exports that occurred from the Kurdistan region of Iraq between 2014 and 2018.
