ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday announced a major expansion of energy ties with Iraq during Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s first visit to Ankara, including a Turkish stake in BP’s operations in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk and an offer from Baghdad to supply Turkey with as much as 1 million barrels of oil per day.

Zaidi, accompanied by a large Iraqi delegation including Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, Finance Minister Faleh al-Sari and Oil Minister Basim Mohammed Khudair, held talks lasting roughly three hours with Erdogan in Ankara. From the Turkish side, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar and Turkish Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalin also joined the talks. 

Speaking at a joint presser after the talks, Erdogan announced that Turkey’s state-owned oil and gas company, TPAO, had acquired a 15% stake in BP’s Kirkuk operations in Iraq.

“The agreement signed today marks a historic step in our energy partnership,” he said. The BP-led company is working to redevelop several major fields in the Kirkuk region with an initial resource potential of about 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to the British oil company’s website.