Turkey confirms gas pipeline from North Iraq

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said on Thursday in Russia's St. Petersburg: "The oil and natural gas, which will flow over Turkey to Europe and to the world markets, is very important for Iraq." Yıldız's veiled confirmation of Hawrami's words adds to concerns that it will provoke Baghdad after a calm few months following earlier tension. Yıldız added that Turkish companies and developers operated in line with Iraqi laws and that there are a number of new projects to develop in the country's north and south. Oil is at the heart of the dispute between the central government and the northern enclave over control of oilfields, territory and crude revenues shared between the two regions. Kurdistan has stopped exporting through the central government-controlled pipeline, which has stranded its oil output. It has been able to truck only small amounts to Turkey on road tankers. Yıldız met Gazprom's Management Committee Chairman Aleksey Miller in St. Petersburg as Turkey approached its major natural gas provider Russia for a possible discount in prices. Gazprom Chairman Alexander Medvedev was quoted in June that the price of gas per thousand cubic meters would go down -- from 7 to 10 percent -- to a range of $370 and $380 in the rest of Europe.

Turkey currently buys gas at prices ranging from $425 to $430 -- meaning once the discount occurs, Turkey will pay the highest price for Russian gas among its buyers.

Yıldız said they failed to agree on a discount in prices for Turkey “as market conditions do not allow it.”

Turkey's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said that Turkey is ready for all kinds of support to normalize Iraq in a meeting with the Prime Minister of the regional administration in northern Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani.

Barzani thanked Yildiz for the meeting and articulated that, because of regional elections in Iraq, they have been very busy nowadays.

In case of the possibility of any attack, Barzani noted they are careful and they have not confronted a problem yet.