IRAQ Politics Intruding on Kurdish Oil Sales Legal Battle

摘要

Baghdad is taking Turkey and Turkish pipeline operator Botas to arbitration, its firmest move yet in its seven-year oil dispute with the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The case, filed on May 23 at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), accuses Ankara of breaking the intergovernmental Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (FTP) Agreement. Whatever the legal strengths of Iraq's case, though, ongoing talks on government formation and regional realpolitik are likely to be the critical factors determining the trajectory of the Kurdish oil sales dispute.