Iraq’s Oil Lifeline Has Been Saved, But For How Long?

The clock that was ticking down to economic disaster for Iraq on 27 July has been paused, with Turkey agreeing to a one-year temporary arrangement that ensures the continuation of critical oil exports running via pipelines from northern Iraq into the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The new one-year protocol covers the entire Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) corridor – comprising two separate oil pipelines – treating it as a single, unified mechanism, in line with the original 1973 ‘Crude Oil Pipeline Agreement’. These routes were made…