Shafaq News- Ankara

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi with an official ceremony at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on Tuesday, in al-Zaidi's first official visit to Turkiye since he took office in May.

Al-Zaidi said the talks would cover investment, water resources, regional security and major infrastructure projects, adding that the visit was intended to develop political and economic relations between the two countries, and that the agenda included the Development Road, a planned road-and-rail corridor designed to link Iraq's southern Faw port to Turkiye and onward to Europe.

Turkish political analyst Gok Oglu told Shafaq News that the Development Road topped the discussions and that Ankara was seeking practical outcomes on water, security and energy rather than a visit confined to protocol, as “some earlier visits had been.”

According to Oglu, the two sides formed joint technical committees to follow up on the water file, and the security file saw progress toward the results both governments sought. The talks also addressed restarting the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which carries crude from the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk to Turkiye's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, and that recent regional developments had increased the strategic and economic importance Ankara attaches to advancing the Development Road inside Iraq.