Political sources in the Iraqi capital, revealed that Russia is pressing through its embassy to revive the file of the oil pipeline, which connects the Iraqi fields to the Syrian port of Baniyas, which last stopped working since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
And “Sky News Arabia” quoted its sources in Baghdad, “The Russian ambassador to Baghdad, Elbrus Quatrashin, met during the past few days with a number of political and bloc leaders, and discussed with them the prospects for rehabilitating this pipeline.”
According to the source, “political blocs from the coordinating framework forces welcomed the idea, but stipulated facilities from the Syrian side, or a contribution to the rehabilitation process.”
During the past days, the Russian ambassador to Baghdad held several talks; He met the Secretary-General of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Qais al-Khazali, the head of the State of Law coalition, Nuri al-Maliki, and others.
According to “Sky News Arabia”, restarting this pipeline will bring net profits to Russia, because its influence and ownership of part of this pipeline will have controlled a large part of the Middle East’s exports to European countries, after it seized the pipeline that exports the production of the Kurdistan region – Iraq through The Turkish port of Ceyhan, where the Russian company “Rosneft” owns 60 percent of the pipeline.
coalition headed by Nuri al-Maliki said in a statement Friday: “We are concerned about the absence of transparency, sufficient information and appropriate guarantees that preserve Iraq’s rights in the Basra-Aqaba pipeline project, especially since the current government lacks legal powers in this regard, as it is a daily business administration.”
“We are with the multiplicity of oil export outlets, which it is hoped under the licensing contracts to reach large quantities, so we support, within the multiplicity of export outlets, the project of transporting oil through the Tartous port in Syria, after security is established there, and working to repair the pipeline transporting through Syrian territory,” he added.
The Iraqi-Syrian export pipeline, which connects the Iraqi oil field network with the port of Baniyas, was established by the British “BP” company after the Second World War, and was used for intermittent periods historically, according to the form of the relationship that linked Syria and Iraq.
With the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, this pipeline stopped working for a long time, and returned to operation in 1997, with the return of relations between Syria and Iraq at the time, but it stopped completely since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, as it currently needs strategic maintenance due to the effects of the war in Both Syria and Iraq on its infrastructure.
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