The Kurdistan region of Iraq has agreed to export its oil using Iraq’s main pipeline, removing a potential stumbling block in their dialogue with the Iraqi government, Reuters are reporting.
Kurdistan’s prime minister and top energy official travelled to Baghdad earlier this week, intensifying efforts to settle the long-running dispute over exports of oil from Kurdistan via a new independent pipeline to Turkey.
The region has previously insisted it will export crude on its own terms, bypassing Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO), but Iraqi deputy prime minister for energy Hussain Al-Shahristani said the Kurds had finally relented.
“After hours of meetings, we have agreed that our brothers in the region will be represented in SOMO and agreed that this is the sole national outlet responsible for exporting oil,” Shahristani said in an interview on Iraqi state television late on Wednesday.
Baghdad has repeatedly threatened to sue Ankara and slash Kurdistan’s share of the national budget if exports go ahead through the pipeline without its consent.
The pipeline was completed late last year, and oil has since been pumped through it into storage tanks at Turkey’s Ceyhan, but exports from the Mediterranean port are on hold to give diplomacy a chance.
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