The vast infrastructure and transportation project linking southern Iraq to Türkiye will pave the way for an opportunity to “build a new world,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday.
The $17-billion Development Road aims to tie Grand Faw Port, a major commodities port in Iraq’s oil-rich south, by rail and roads to the border with Türkiye, turning the country into a transit hub by shortening travel time between Asia and Europe in a bid to rival the Suez Canal.
Unveiled in late May, the project would facilitate the movement of goods from the Gulf to Europe through the Grand Faw Port in Basra, which would be connected to Türkiye and then to Europe through a network of railways and highways.
“It is a corridor that will pass through the Persian Gulf and the Gulf countries and through Iraq and go to Europe through Türkiye. Be it the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, they are all very, very determined on this issue,” Erdoğan told the Concordia Annual Summit in New York.
“Most importantly, we are also committed. I have seen this determination in America, I have seen this determination in Germany, Japan. Therefore, with such a step we will take, we will have the opportunity to build a new world.”
The planned project will involve the construction of about 1,200 km (about 745 miles) of railways and highways.
It envisions high-speed trains moving goods and passengers at up to 300 km (186.41 miles) per hour, links to local industry hubs, and an energy component that could include oil and gas pipelines.
Separately, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said the Development Road project is “a very strategic project.”
“It is a very strategic project. It aims to connect the south of Iraq with Basra and Türkiye and from here to Europe. It is a very important project both for Iraq and for the entire region,” Hussein told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday.
Underlining that they are really eager to have Erdoğan visit Baghdad, he said doing so will boost ties further, advancing bilateral relations.
Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan last week expressed optimism regarding the project, which he said is of great importance for prosperity and stability in the Middle East, stating they expect to move to the implementation phase in the coming months.
Hussein said Türkiye and Iraq have various fields of cooperation and that he hopes they can advance in areas in which they are cooperating with each other.
“But there are also some issues. We must deal with these issues together and find solutions for them together. So we need more cooperation on some issues, especially on security issues,” he added.
Asked about the energy cooperation between Türkiye and Iraq, he referred to the halted exports of oil from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Hussein said they are determined to find a solution for this through “dialogue and communication.”
Türkiye suspended Iraq’s 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
The ICC ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages worth $1.5 billion over what it said were unauthorized exports by the KRG between 2014 and 2018.
Türkiye, on the other hand, said the ICC had recognized most of Ankara’s demands. Its Energy Ministry said the chamber ordered Iraq to compensate Türkiye for several violations concerning the case.
Multiple high-level talks between Türkiye and Iraq have been held recently, but negotiations have not yielded results yet.
“There are two things: One, Iraq cannot export (oil) anymore in this case. Iraqi ‘Kurdistan’ cannot, anymore, export through the pipeline that goes from Türkiye to Ceyhan. And the second one has to do with the arbitration case in Paris, (in) which Türkiye is not satisfied with the whole process,” Hussein added.
“As two neighboring countries, we need to find an amicable solution. But from the legal perspective, we must take care of our interests. Most likely, in the future, we might face another court challenge,” Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said last Thursday.
Ankara will file in the Paris court for a “set-aside case,” Bayraktar said. In April, Iraq opened an enforcement case against Türkiye in a U.S. federal court to enforce the $1.5 billion arbitration award.
The minister still said exports through the pipeline would “soon be ready to resume operations” after maintenance checks and repairs to flood damage.
“I think we must sit (down) together and find a solution for both. Either we are going to this linkage, water issues, so the Paris case will not have to do with the pipeline; or if there is this linkage between the issue in Paris, the pipeline and opening the pipeline so that the ‘Kurdistan’ region can export oil,” Hussein told AA.
Sources earlier said oil flows are not expected to start before October, with KRG losing roughly $4 billion in lost exports.
