Trade relations between Iraq, Turkey

The Iraqi oil minister Amer Muhammad Rasheed said on Tuesday that the volume of trade exchange between Iraq and Turkey reached USD 3 billion for the current year 2001. The same figure used to be before 1990.

The Iraqi daily al-Rafeydeen quoted Rasheed as saying that the trade and economic relations between Iraq and Turkey have been witnessing notable progress in all areas in the course of the " oil for food" memorandum of understanding or in the framework of the joint trade exchange agreements between the two countries.

Rasheed indicated the tremendous potentials Turkey owns to export various commodities.

On the project to build a pipeline to export natural gas to Turkey, the Iraqi oil minister stressed that Iraq and Turkey agreed to install the pipeline to export natural gas from Iraq to the southern west of Turkey as a first phase to export 11 billion cubic meters of gas annually and to increase this amount in the future.