US President Donald Trump’s administration is piling pressure on Iraq to allow Kurdish oil exports to restart or face sanctions alongside Iran, eight sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Iraq’s oil minister made a surprise announcement on Monday that exports from Kurdistan would resume next week. That would mark the end of a nearly two-year dispute that has cut flows of more than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Kurdish oil via Turkey to global markets.
Reuters spoke to eight sources in Baghdad, Washington, and Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, who said that mounting pressure from the new US administration was a key driver behind Monday’s announcement.
All of the sources declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
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