Baher al-Oloum asks for exporting the Iraqi oil via Kuwait

Following talks with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Iraq's oil minister Ibrahim Baher al-Aloum asked for permit to use the Kuwaiti ports in order to export the Iraqi crude oil.

The Kuwaiti TV quoted Baher al-Aloum as referring, following the meeting with Kuwait's oil minister, to the possibility of using the Kuwaiti ports in exporting Iraqi crude oil.

The Kuwaiti news agency said that Iraq and Kuwait agreed to form a higher committee chaired by the two ministers in order to coordinate all issues pending between the two states concerning oil. It added it is expected that the committee will hold its first meeting after Eid al-Fiter holiday.

The Iraqi minister was asked whether his talks in Kuwait dealt with using the Kuwaiti ports, and he said that Iraq's policy in the future is to assure ports availability for exports, along with discussions on other issues in the meeting of the joint committee. He told the Kuwaiti daily al-Seyasah that his country wants to pay some of its due debts to Kuwait through providing it with natural gas.

Baher al-Aloum said upon his arrival in Kuwait from Qatar, which he had visited in the course of a Gulf tour that covered Saudi Arabia, that his talks in Saudi Arabia did not deal with the issue of re-opening the Iraqi-Saudi oil pipeline which has been blocked since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.