Turkey pivots to Baghdad to close deal on Kurdish oil
Turkey has realized it can’t sell Kurdish oil without Baghdad’s blessing.
![IRAQ-TURKEY/ Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz speaks at the Iraq-Kurdistan Oil and Gas Conference at Arbil in Iraq's Kurdistan region, December 2, 2013. Turkey said on Monday it stood by a bilateral oil deal with Iraq's Kurdistan region that bypassed central government but wanted to win Baghdad's support by drawing it into the arrangement. Reuters reported that Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan signed a multi-billion-dollar energy package last week, infuriating a central Baghdad government which claims sole authority over](/sites/default/files/styles/article_hero_medium/public/almpics/2014/05/RTX161A9.jpg/RTX161A9.jpg?h=c2c5b897&itok=9lsxxQur)
Turkey has become aware that the northern Iraq oil stockpiled in Turkey cannot be sold on the world market without Baghdad's approval and has begun developing appropriate new policies.
Since 2011, when relations with the Maliki government seriously deteriorated, Ankara has been striving for economic integration with the northern Iraq Kurdish administration. Most of the schools, hospitals, hotels, mass housing, roads, bridges and infrastructure in that region have been built by Turkish companies. Most of their food supplies come from Turkey. But that rosy situation began to change when oil and natural gas got into the picture.