**2/23 – 'All Measures Complete' To Restart Iraqi Kurdistan Oil Exports To Turkiye** – [The Cradle](https://thecradle.co/articles/all-measures-comple
**2/23 – ‘All Measures Complete’ To Restart Iraqi Kurdistan Oil Exports To Turkiye**
**__US President Donald Trump has put strong pressure on Baghdad to resume Kurdish oil exports as part of a plan to end Iranian oil exports__**
The Iraqi Ministry of Oil announced on 22 February that all necessary measures to resume oil exports from the Kurdistan Region to Turkiye had been completed while calling on Kurdish authorities to transfer the required oil volumes to Iraq’s state-owned oil company.
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“The Federal Ministry of Oil confirms the completion of procedures to resume the export of oil produced in the Kurdistan region through the port of Ceyhan in accordance with the mechanisms set out in the budget law and its amendment and within the production ceiling specified for Iraq by OPEC,”__ the statement said.
The ministry also requested that Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) authorities “deliver the quantities produced from the operating fields to the Oil Marketing Company (SOMO) to begin exporting oil through the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline and the port of Ceyhan in accordance with the term contracts signed with the nominated companies.”
On Tuesday, Iraqi Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani stated that a senior-level delegation from his ministry visited Erbil to discuss the technical and legal framework for restarting Kurdistan’s oil exports via Turkiye.
Abdul Ghani also noted that the Iraqi delegation and KRG Acting Minister of Natural Resources Kamal Mohammed had agreed to continue discussing the issue. On Monday, the Iraqi delegation arrived in Erbil to negotiate the restart of oil exports, following the request from the KRG.
On Friday, officials in the government of US President Donald Trump said Iraq must allow Kurdish oil exports to resume or face sanctions alongside Iran. Trump is seeking to cut Iranian oil exports to “zero” as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign on the Islamic Republic. The White House argued that Iraqi Kurdish oil production will be needed to offset the loss of Iranian oil on world markets.
KRG oil exports to Turkiye were halted in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ruled the exports were illegal according to a 1973 pipeline agreement between Iraq’s central government in Baghdad and Ankara.
Exports of Iraqi Kurdish oil began in 2014 after leaders of the Iraqi Kurdistan region cut a deal with ISIS, allowing the extremist group to take Mosul, Sinjar, and other territories in exchange for allowing Kurdish Peshmerga forces to take the disputed city of Kirkuk.
Kurdish leaders wished to control Kirkuk’s massive oil reserves to provide a revenue base to support the independent Kurdish state they hoped to establish. Baghdad insisted that the exports were illegal and must pass through the state oil company instead.
The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline ran through territory conquered by ISIS, but Kurdish leaders had begun building a separate pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkiye via the Fishkhabour crossing in 2013.
After taking Kirkuk, the Kurdish region began illegally exporting oil via the newly built pipeline to Turkiye. The majority of this oil was sold to Israel, a backer of Kurdish independence. **__By 2015, Kurdish crude accounted for 77 percent of Israeli oil imports.__**
**🔗SOURCE** ➡️ [The Cradle](https://thecradle.co/articles/all-measures-complete-to-restart-iraqi-kurdistan-oil-exports-to-turkiye)
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READ FULL ARTICLE: This article originally appeared on [The Cradle](https://thecradle.co/articles/all-measures-comple
