On 25 March 2023, Ankara abruptly closed the pipeline delivering crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan to its Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan in order to comply with an arbitration ruling that key parts of the trade breached the 1973 bilateral Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) agreement (MEES, 31 March 2023).
Despite Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) swiftly reaching an agreement with Baghdad handing the federal government oversight over its oil sector (MEES, 7 April 2023), the pipeline remains shut and there is little optimism that flows will resume any time soon. (CONTINUED - 1213 WORDS)
