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Turkish FM vows to enhance energy tie with Iraq's Kurdish region

15 March 2014 23:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Turkey hopes to develop and secure energy supply and distribution regardless of its origin, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday with the visiting leader of Iraq's Kurdish region Nechirvan Barzani, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Davutoglu made the remarks as tensions still linger between Iraq's central government and Irbil city in Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region over the latter's right to export oil to Turkey independently.

This should not be seen as a political stance, Davutoglu said.

Tensions mounted after Turkey signed a series of deals in November 2013 with Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region to build a multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipeline to ship the region's reserves to world markets.

However, these deals angered Baghdad, which claims sole authority on Iraq's oil.

In response, Davutoglu said all recent energy agreements between Turkey and Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region were made in accordance with Iraq's constitution.