SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq on Friday was officially informed by Turkey that an international arbitration court ruled in its favor in the long-running case against Ankara over Kurdish crude exports, argus media reported, adding, in yet another blow to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Turkey also said it will not allow shipments carrying crude from the Iraqi Kurdistan region to leave its coastal port of Ceyhan without the consent of the federal government in Baghdad, the report said.
The case at the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration in Paris has been running for almost nine years and centers on Iraq’s claim that Turkey has violated a 1973 pipeline transit agreement by allowing crude exports from Iraq’s Kurdish region without Baghdad’s consent, according to argus.
The dispute dates back to 2014 when the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), independent of Baghdad, connected its oilfields to the Turkish border crossing at Fishkhabor, tapping into the existing Iraq-Turkey Pipeline.
The pipeline previously delivered crude from Iraq’s northern Kirkuk oilfield to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan.
Iraq’s Kurdistan depends on crude oil exports through Turkey, and the Paris court ruling will further tighten the noose on Erbil, weakening its hand in negotiations with Baghdad over an authoritative legal framework for the country’s oil sector.
