Iraq and Turkey to devise roadmap for expanded trade

• Trade reaches a $15bn high
• Turkey exports of $13bn
• ‘Road of Development’ partners

Iraq and its northern neighbour Turkey will hold a series of meetings in the coming weeks to devise a roadmap for increasing bilateral trade, which hit an all-time high of nearly $15 billion in 2024.

“There is a plan in this respect and it has been prepared with the help of various Iraqi economic parties… We hope that the next meetings in Ankara and Baghdad will lead to a roadmap for expanding trade between the two countries,” the trade ministry spokesman Mohammed Hanoun told the official Iraqi news agency.

A fine imposed on Turkey by a Paris tribunal is a possible obstacle to progress. The fine relates to oil exports by the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) via a pipeline to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. The International Criminal Court found both the KRG and Turkey to be at fault. 

It fined Turkey $1.5 billion and authorised the Iraq state oil marketing organisation, Somo, to control exports out of Ceyhan, a ruling that led Turkey to close the pipeline immediately. Ankara has rejected any liability to pay compensation to Baghdad, a position it maintains.

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Turkey is however a partner in Iraq’s “Road of Development” project, which involves the construction of a 1,200km rail line and a parallel motorway stretching from the southern port of Faw to the northern border with Turkey.

The Turkish transport minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said earlier this year that Ankara intends to invest up to $20 billion in that project, including new rail lines and infrastructure upgrades to handle 7.5 millions containers that are expected to cross through its border every year.

The UAE and Qatar are also subscribers to the project, which is expected to cost at least $17 billion and to be completed in 2029.

Recent figures by Iraq’s embassy in Ankara showed trade between Iraq and Turkey peaked at a record of about $15 billion in 2024.

The balance has remained over the past years largely in favour of Turkey given its exports to Iraq, estimated at about $13 billion last year. The report showed Iraq accounted for nearly 5 percent of Turkey’s total exports in 2024, making the Arab country the fourth largest export market for the Turks.