Turkey halted flows on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorized exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) between 2014 and 2018.
The block consists mainly of oil originating from Iraq’s Kurdish region.
The results of the meeting were to allow Turkey and Iraq to finalize pipeline maintenance before resuming oil flow, according to an oil ministry statement.
Iraq’s oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani had arrived in the Turkish capital to discuss issues including the resumption of oil exports through the Ceyhan oil terminal, Reuters quoted an energy source with knowledge of the ministers’ meeting in Ankara on Tuesday.
Iraqi energy officials said on Tuesday that the visit of their oil minister is aimed at reaching common ground with Turkey to agree on a clear date when oil exports should be resumed.
“It’s not an easy job to reach an agreement soon and we have a lot of thorny issues. Turkey has demands and conditions that require further talks to allow oil flow restart,” said an oil ministry official with knowledge of Tuesday’s meeting.
SD/PR
