No Disagreements, Full Commitment: Inside the Baghdad Meeting That Could Restart Kurdistan's Oil
Kurdistan24’s source inside Wednesday’s Baghdad meeting says Iraqi PM personally pledged to remove all obstacles for oil companies
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - On Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falih al-Zaidi convened a high-level meeting in Baghdad that brought together a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation, led by Minister of Natural Resources Kamal Mohammed Salih, and representatives of international oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region.
The session, held in the presence of Iraq's ministers of foreign affairs and oil, as well as the country's chief of staff, was called to address the severe economic losses Iraq has sustained from the suspension of oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, disruptions triggered by the regional conflict convulsing the Middle East.
What emerged from that meeting, according to Kurdistan24’s source who participated in the talks, went further than the official statements indicated.
Inside the Room
The source told Kurdistan24 that the session was conducted in a markedly positive atmosphere, and that al-Zaidi made a personal commitment to the KRG delegation and oil company representatives:
every problem and obstacle standing in the way of resuming exports will be resolved, so that oil can be delivered to its highest possible level through the international pipeline.
More strikingly, the source confirmed that the KRG delegation and the prime minister reached agreement on every point discussed. There were no disagreements.
The assurances did not stop at words. Al-Zaidi instructed a number of military commanders to visit the Kurdistan Region within the coming week to address, comprehensively, the security concerns that oil production companies have been facing, a directive that translates political agreement into operational action with a concrete deadline.
For its part, the KRG delegation made its own pledge: full readiness to raise the level of the Kurdistan Region's oil exports through Ceyhan pipeline to their highest possible levels.
Wednesday's talks did not emerge from nowhere. They are the operational follow-through on a landmark diplomatic push last month, when Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani made an official two-day visit to Baghdad and agreed with al-Zaidi to pursue constitutional solutions to long-standing disputes over revenue-sharing, governance, and oil and gas policy.
What was then a framework for dialogue has now, according to the source, produced a meeting with no points of contention and military-level commitments to match.