Kurdistan’s President welcomes oil export agreement
The President of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani. Photo: AFP
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The President of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, welcomed the federal government and the regional government’s agreement on Kurdistan oil exports, according to a statement issued by Kurdistan’s Presidency on Tuesday.
“We welcome the agreement between the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government to resume oil exports from Kurdistan,” Barzani said.
Kurdistan’s President praised the role played by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, and the Prime Minister of Kurdistan region, Masrour Barzani, in concluding the agreement.
Barzani thanked the teams of the two sides for conducting a successful dialogue that ended in reaching an agreement.
The President of Kurdistan region expressed his hope that the agreement would be a beginning of solving other issues.
A few days ago, the Kurdistan Regional Government announced it reached a preliminary agreement with the federal government to resume oil exports from Kurdistan.
This agreement took place after Baghdad won last month an international arbitration case, which led to the suspension of the Kurdistan region’s exports of crude oil through the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Kurdistan exports oil through its pipeline on the northern Iraqi border, where it enters Turkey and pumped to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast.
Kurdistan began exporting crude oil away from the federal government in 2013, but Baghdad repeatedly denounced this behavior.
Iraq was forced to suspend about 450 thousand barrels per day of crude exports, or 0.5 percent of global supplies, from the Kurdistan region last week following the ruling issued by the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in the French capital, Paris.
The halt contributed to an increase in oil prices in the past days, to return to nearly 80 USD per barrel.