Baghdad denies plan to replace Kurdistan border crossing with Syria route

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Baghdad views border crossings in federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region through the same lens, a senior Iraqi border authority official told Rudaw on Tuesday, a day after the first transit convoy traveled from Turkey to Iraq’s northern Nineveh province via Syria, fueling speculation that shifting trade routes between Ankara and Baghdad could weaken the Region’s role as a transit hub.

The convoy of cargo trucks arrived at the Rabia border crossing on Monday after passing through Syria’s Gire Spi (Tal Abyad) crossing with Turkey.

Asked by Rudaw whether the Rabia crossing could become an alternative to the Ibrahim Khalil crossing between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey, Omar al-Waili, head of Iraq’s Border Crossings Authority, said Baghdad “deals with all crossings equally, including the Region’s, and we have no intention or direction to replace one crossing with another.”

He added that “the opening of new crossings with Syria comes in response to the needs of the bordering provinces.”

The Syrian side of the Rabia border crossing, known as al-Yarubiyah, reopened earlier this year after being closed in late 2024 following the ouster of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad by a coalition of armed groups led by Syria’s current interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

On Monday, Sirwa Mohammed, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s economy and trade committee, said Waili had informed her that “Turkey itself requested the reopening of the Rabia crossing so that the largest share of trade movement would pass through this route.”

The Kurdish lawmaker told Rudaw that she believes the move is aimed at “weakening and paralyzing the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing” with Turkey, which is located in the Kurdistan Region’s northern Duhok province.

She added that the development could negatively affect the Kurdistan Region’s economy, stressing that “the Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG] must urgently enter talks with Baghdad to protect the remaining trade activity and agree on customs procedures” under the Automatic System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) agreement between Erbil and Baghdad.

The ASYCUDA electronic automation system was developed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the early 1980s and is now used at all 22 of Iraq’s federal border crossings, including key southern ports. The system is designed to standardize and modernize customs procedures.

The KRG formally petitioned the Iraqi federal government to convene an urgent session of the Ministerial Council for the Economy to finalize the ASYCUDA agreement, a senior commerce official in Erbil told Rudaw last week.

Importantly, Waili said on Tuesday that “the federal customs authority and the Kurdistan Region’s customs authority have reached an agreement on the mechanisms for linkage, and the matter is currently being implemented by the technical committees of both sides.”