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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not renew the 1973 Iraq-Turkey oil export agreement and the deal is set to be terminated in 2026, the country's official gazette announced on Monday.
In a presidential decree published on Turkey's Legal Gazette, Erdogan signed the 'decision on the termination of the part and annex letters' and 'the supplementary agreement to the crude oil pipeline agreement' between Iraq and Turkey, approved by the Turkish Council of Ministers in 1975.
The deal is set to be terminated on July 27, 2026, according to the letter.
It was first signed between the Turkish and Iraqi governments on August 27, 1973, and has been renewed repeatedly over the years, most recently in 2010.
The Iraq-Turkey crude oil pipeline was built to transport crude oil from Kirkuk and other fields to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
Erdogan's decision comes amid renewed efforts by the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to resume long-stalled oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline.
Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the pipeline have been halted since March 2023 when a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying the latter had violated the 1973 pipeline agreement by allowing Erbil to begin exporting oil independently in 2014.
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