Turkey ‘urges’ US to permit KRG oil sales

LONDON/ANKARA

The oil tanker SCF Byrranga, which was renamed the United Kalavryta in March 2014 and is currently off the coast of Texas with a cargo of Kurdish crude oil, is seen off the Isle of Arran, Scotland in this handout photo taken February 21, 2014. REUTERS Photo

Ankara has called on Washington to permit Iraqi Kurdish oil sales to support them in their battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, Financial Times (FT) reported on Aug. 14.

“This is urgent: Isis is now selling its oil, but the Kurds are not allowed to sell their oil,” the Turkish official told the Financial Times, referring to oilfields captured by the jihadist group in eastern Syria and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. According to the FT report, the official claimed ISIL was selling cut-price oil to the Syrian government and compared those sales with the legal obstacles faced by KRG exports.

Several cargoes of Kurdish Shaikan crude have recently reached the United States and Iraq’s central government has moved to block independent exports of crude by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The KRG oil cargoes are coming under greater scrutiny after Iraq won a U.S. court order 10 days ago to seize a one-million-barrel shipment that arrived in the Gulf of Mexico.