Iraq's prime minister visits Turkiye as Baghdad seeks oil export routes outside the Strait of Hormuz

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi arrived in Turkiye on Tuesday, 28 July 2026 (6 Mordad 1405), leading a high level delegation of ministers and senior officials, on his first visit to the neighbouring country since taking office in May. According to Iraqi government spokesman Haider al-Aboudi, the talks focus on "strategic cooperation" as well as security, water and the economy.

Energy is the heaviest item on the agenda. The Iraq Turkiye oil pipeline agreement, which governed the flow of crude from Kirkuk to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, expired on Monday, 27 July. A source at Iraq's oil ministry told Al Jazeera that a technical delegation arrived in Ankara late last week to finalise a one year extension of the old agreement until a new deal is concluded. Part of al-Zaidi's plan is to secure new energy deals and alternative routes to export Iraqi crude through Turkiye and Syria to the Mediterranean. Iraq signed energy deals estimated at $200 billion with US companies during al-Zaidi's visit to the United States earlier this month.

Iraqi Oil Minister Basim Khudair stated the motive plainly: "There is an urgent need to find new export outlets away from the Strait of Hormuz, which no longer meets Iraq's requirements." Another project on the table is the so called Development Route, a 1,200 kilometre rail and highway network running from the al-Fao port in southern Iraq to the Iraq, Turkiye and Syria border triangle, passing through 10 Iraqi provinces. Abd al-Jabar Ahmad, a professor of political science, told Al Jazeera that continued attacks by armed groups have "effectively derailed" the project, adding that a rival transport corridor linking Turkiye through Syria to Jordan and Saudi Arabia "stripped Iraq's Development Road Project of much of its economic and investment appeal". Iraq is the leading destination for Iran's non-oil exports, and its energy and transit routes bear directly on cross-border trade and on the place of the Strait of Hormuz in regional calculations.