The Kurdistan Regional Government has disputed a claim by federal authorities in Baghdad that the semi-autonomous region is responsible for the suspension of oil exports through Iraq's northern pipeline to Ceyhan port in Turkey.
Iraq made the accusation as the country faces mounting pressure to restore crude flows halted by the regional conflict.
Baghdad's position "does not address the full dimensions of the issue" and "distorts the facts and attempts to blame the Kurdistan region in order to mislead public opinion", the KRG's Ministry of Natural Resources said in a statement posted on social media platform X.
The ministry added that it "repeatedly called on Baghdad to begin a serious, constructive dialogue to resolve all of these issues", but such requests "have been ignored".
Oil accounts for about 90 per cent of Iraq's national budget, making the stand-off between Baghdad and Erbil highly significant for the country's finances. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which runs about 970km from northern Iraq to Turkey's Mediterranean coast, has a capacity of about 1.2 million barrels per day.
Basra, Iraq's main export terminal, exported about 3.3 million bpd before the conflict began, which accounted for the vast majority of the country's total crude sales. But the site has been effectively shut since Iranian strikes on tankers in Iraqi territorial waters forced Baghdad to halt all loading at its southern terminals.
The KRG outlined three main grievances in its response to Baghdad. Since January, it said the Iraqi government imposed "a suffocating embargo under the pretext of implementing the ASYCUDA customs system", referring to the Automated System for Customs Data.
That is a UN-developed software platform used by customs authorities worldwide to manage and automate the processing of trade and customs declarations. Kurdish officials say the move has strangled trade by preventing businesses in their region from accessing hard currency needed to pay for imports.
The KRG statement also said "outlawed militias" made oil, gas and energy fields "targets of their attacks", taking production offline and leaving "no oil available for export". It added that Baghdad has taken "no effective measures" to stop the assaults and claimed "many of the perpetrators ... receive salaries and support from Baghdad".
Iraq is facing a growing economic crisis. Iran's regional strikes have choked supplies from Opec's second-largest producer, with the BP-operated Rumaila oilfield, which had been producing about 1.5 million bpd, shut owing to a shortage of tankers at Iraq's southern export terminals. Last week, Iran launched drones at the giant Majnoon oilfield and the Lanaz refinery in Erbil.
With no tankers to load because Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq has taken fields offline because of storage space constraints. Iraq’s crude output has dropped to 1.4 million barrels per day, less than a third of the output reported before the conflict.
