Regarding the natural gas pipeline agreement with Iraq, Minister of ENERGY and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar said, "We are not extending the pipeline agreement. We said a year ago that we would not renew this agreement. This agreement was signed in 2010, and Iraq took us to arbitration in 2014. We do not want to continue with such an agreement, an agreement that causes disagreements."
Minister Alparslan Bayraktar answered journalists' questions after the Cabinet Meeting held at the Presidential Complex last night. Regarding the arbitration case regarding shipments via the Iraq-Turkey Crude Oil Pipeline, Minister Bayraktar said, "The arbitration decision for the 2014-2018 period has already been made; 'Turkey will pay this much, Iraq will pay this much to Türkiye.' As we said then, it will be calculated with interest and we will see who is the creditor accordingly. That decision hasn't been made yet. That decision will be made by the court in D.C. (District of Columbia Federal Court). That court is continuing for enforcement, but we made an objection to the court in Paris regarding the first decision and wanted the legal procedure to be completed. But what we are really looking at right now is the ongoing enforcement case in Washington. We will look at it. An account will be made there. Interest will be calculated, our receivables come from a long time ago. According to him, that period will be over. "The arbitration case regarding the period after 2018 continues," he said.
Regarding the negotiations to extend the pipeline agreement with Iraq, Minister Bayraktar said, "We are not extending the pipeline agreement. We said a year ago that we would not renew this agreement. This agreement was signed in 2010, and Iraq took us to arbitration in 2014. We do not want to continue with such an agreement, an agreement that causes disagreements. This means that this agreement is not working. It has left us alone with arbitration. Therefore, there must be a new agreement. Therefore, we told them to have a new agreement. Actually, we said we would not renew it a year ago and we sent them a new draft agreement. However, there were elections in Iraq and now the government has just been established. Therefore, it is almost impossible to reach an agreement by the end of July. As an interim solution, we said to them, 'Let's make a 1-year oil transportation agreement with BOTAŞ. If we can reach an agreement in three months within a year, we can reach an agreement in six months.' Let's call it 'New ITP'; a more comprehensive new pipeline agreement. We have a goal to take the line to Basra. Therefore, we said, 'But let's not stop the flow until July 27,' and they said, 'We would need a capacity of 750 thousand barrels.' barrels, but we said, 'Okay, we will allocate 750 thousand barrels to you. We want to sign a new ITP, that is, a more comprehensive ITP, within a year.'
Minister Bayraktar said, "We also met with the Iraqi Prime Minister and said, 'Let's increase the capacity to 2.5 million barrels'. If Kuwait wants, Kuwait should put its oil in this pipeline. We said comprehensive things such as 'If there are others who want something else from the Gulf, let them put it'. Let's build a natural gas pipeline right away. Let's dig it once, let's put 2 pipelines. Qatar gas can come, other gas sources can come, we talked about a lot of things."