KRG says it is ready for talks on resuming oil exports After Baghdad "ASAP" call

Shafaq News/ The Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Ministry of Natural Resources said on Wednesday it was ready to visit Baghdad again to discuss resuming oil exports from northern fields, following a call from the federal ministry for a meeting "as soon as possible".

Both sides are seeking a resolution to the long-standing dispute over the control of hydrocarbon resources under the jurisdiction of the semi-autonomous region. The federal Ministry of Oil said in a statement on Tuesday it wanted to restart production in Kurdistan's fields and resume exports "through the northern system in a way that serves the national interest."

International companies operating in the Region were also invited.

The KRG's natural resources ministry said in a statement it had already met with federal counterparts in January and May this year and awaited the outcome of those discussions. It added its readiness to travel to Baghdad "next week to resolve this issue."

Traffic via the Iraq-Turkiye oil pipeline (ITP), which once handled about 0.5% of global oil supply has been halted, stuck in legal and financial limbo, since March 2023, and talks to resume the exports have stalled.

The sharing of oil revenues between Iraq's federal government and the Kurdish-majority region in the north has been a cause of tensions between the two sides.

Flows through the pipeline to the Ceyhan port were halted after the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce in a longstanding arbitration case ruled Ankara had violated provisions of a 1973 treaty by facilitating such exports without the consent of the Iraqi federal government.