Turkiye delays Baghdad visit amid regional war
Shafaq News/ A planned visit by a high-level Turkish delegation to Baghdad has been postponed due to escalating military tensions between Iran and Israel, a senior source revealed on Wednesday.
The delegation, led by the head of Turkiye’s Council of Higher Education and comprising several ministers, was scheduled to hold talks on key bilateral files. However, the source told Shafaq News that the visit was delayed indefinitely “due to the ongoing war and the unstable regional security conditions caused by the exchange of missile and air strikes.”
According to the source, the agenda was set to include discussions on regional security in Syria, the status of PKK militants, the resumption of oil exports through the Ceyhan pipeline, and a settlement to the $1.5 billion arbitration fine Turkiye owes Iraq over unauthorized crude exports from the Kurdistan Region.
Economic cooperation was also on the table, with both sides expected to explore new trade arrangements and mechanisms to resume stalled oil flows. The suspended pipeline, halted in March 2023 after the arbitration ruling, had previously transported up to 500,000 barrels per day from Iraq’s northern fields—including those in the Kurdistan Region.
The postponed talks come just days after reports surfaced on June 12 confirming the impending Turkish visit. It was seen as a follow-up to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s May 8 visit to Ankara, during which he met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and signed 10 memoranda of understanding covering energy, trade, investment, and security cooperation.
The diplomatic setback comes at a time when both Baghdad and Ankara have expressed interest in revitalizing trade relations, with bilateral trade reaching nearly $13 billion in 2024 and projected to rise in 2025.
