Losses resulting from shutdown of conduit to Turkey estimated at more than $4 billion The once-thriving oil industry in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq has ground to a halt as the closure of the export pipeline to Turkey, now in its sixth month, continues, inflicting economic devastation. In late March, Turkey halted flows of oil produced in the region after an arbitrat
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The U.S. has for years been giving Iraq tens of billions of dollars to help with its finances on the specific condition that the country reduces its imports of gas and electricity from Iran eventually to zero. Iran has wielded enormous power over Iraq for a very long time indeed through its various political, economic, and military proxies. Iraq will pay with its own
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This paper attempts to analyse the reasons that paved the way for the US administration to take the decision of direct military intervention and change the political regime in Iraq in 2003 and not in 1991, focusing on changing economic interest of the USA in the region which influenced that decision. There is near consensus among Iraqi political analysts that the American in
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As global oil prices soar, smugglers are exploiting the lucrative profit margin between Iraq’s subsidized fuel and black-market rates elsewhere. Smugglers move the country’s oil to and through the contested Kurdish region, exacerbating nationwide shortages and depriving the state of much-needed income. These illicit oil flows are also funding Iranian-backed militias, creating b
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Although Iraq stands to gain significant revenues from an oil windfall, urgent reforms are needed to ensure these funds benefit the people, not just the elites. After a full year of political stalemate and fierce power struggles, Iraq’s ruling elite have finally managed to form a government led by Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani. Thanks to the surge in international crude oil price
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