Barzani said that “the halt of oil exports has caused billions of dollars in losses to the public treasury and must be resumed as soon as possible” in a meeting with Iraqi Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani in Erbil, according to a statement by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
“The prime minister reiterated the Region’s readiness to resume oil exports within the framework of a common understanding to meet the financial and technical requirements of the export process within constitutional principles and contracts,” the statement added.
On Sunday, KRG Natural Resources Minister Kamal Muhammad Salih received Ghani and his accompanying delegation from the oil ministry, including Undersecretary for Extraction Affairs Basim Mohammed Khudair, and Undersecretary for Distribution Affairs Ali Maarij al-Bahadli, in the Kurdish capital of Erbil.
The delegation’s visit comes after an agreement between Prime Minister Barzani and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani for a federal government delegation to visit Erbil and discuss resolving the outstanding oil issues, according to the KRG.
The visit of the Iraqi delegation is the continuation of discussions between the two sides aimed at resuming the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports, “considering its importance in supplementing the federal budget with financial revenues,” according to a statement from the oil ministry.
Exports of Kurdistan Region’s oil through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline have been halted since March 23 when a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying Turkey had breached a 1973 agreement by allowing Erbil to begin independent oil exports in 2014.
Erbil and Baghdad have held multiple rounds of talks about restarting the exports. Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani last week said the problem now is technical rather than political.
Areas where they still need to reach an agreement include existing contracts between the KRG and oil companies, according to President Barzani.
Representatives of the Iraqi government and oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region on Wednesday held their first meeting in Dubai, stressing the need to resume full oil production and exports “under mutually acceptable commercial terms,” the oil producers association stated
