Iraq’s northern exports at risk with imminent expiration of Turkey treaty

Iraq’s northern oil exports are set to shut down on July 27 with the expiration of a bilateral treaty with Turkey, potentially depriving Baghdad of a strategically important pipeline route that is currently responsible for more than half of its wartime revenue.

The clock has been ticking for the past year, ever since Turkey notified Iraq that it would not be renewing the old agreement governing the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP). Now that a new government has taken power in Baghdad, the Oil Ministry has revived its efforts to ensure oil exports to Turkey can continue, but multiple Iraqi officials said that their Turkish counterparts are trying to leverage the Iran war crisis — and Iraq’s sudden dependence on its only secondary pipeline export route — to force a lopsided deal.