Turkey has stopped the flow of electricity through a 300-megawatt-capacity link to Iraq after Baghdad failed to pay an estimated $70 million plus in arrears due to Ankara under the scheme that became operational last fall, Al-Monitor has learned. Well-placed sources familiar with the details of the arrangement said that Ankara had stopped providing electricity to Iraq around a week ago. 

In a mid-March meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Turkey’s energy minister, Alparslan Bayraktar, reportedly raised the issue of the arrears, complaining privately to other Iraqi interlocutors that Turkey was not in the business of charity. 

The stoppage comes on the eve of Iraq’s scorching summer months, when the need for electricity to power air conditioning and other cooling appliances surges. Iraq is currently able to meet roughly 60% of its electricity needs during the peak season, experts say, and therefore depends on external suppliers — including the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and, since last year, Turkey. 

Baghdad wants to double the amount of electricity it purchases from Turkey and is reportedly working on arranging a line of credit to secure the resumption of Turkish sales, one of the sources told Al-Monitor. "They dragged their feet, a typical [case of] Iraqi spinning in circles," the source said of the chronic dysfunction affecting decision-making in the Iraqi government.