Turkey will host a four-way summit with Iraq, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on August 29 to discuss an ambitious multi-billion dollar project to link Iraq’s Basra port on the Persian Gulf with Turkey and the rest of the world, Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Ularoglu said on Friday.
The meeting will bring together ministers from the three countries at Dolmabahce Palace, the residence of the last Ottoman sultan, where “important decisions” will be taken, Ularoglu told Turkish state broadcaster TRT. Qatar and the UAE are potential investors in the project.
The estimated $20 billion project, formalized during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s official visit to Baghdad in April, will link Basra’s Al Faw port, currently under construction, with Turkey by a 1,275-kilometer (792-mile) rail and road network. Abu Dhabi’s AD Ports Group has signed a preliminary agreement with Iraq’s General Authority for Iraqi Ports to develop Al Faw and its planned economic zone.
Iraq holds about 10% of the world’s oil reserves and accounts for 5% of global production, so energy will play a vital role in the plan. The Iraqi government believes that the project, once completed, will significantly reduce the cost of trade between China and Europe.
Nejat Tamzok, a Turkish academic who writes about energy and mining, said in a recent essay for Eurasia Review that “the project is expected to reduce the time it takes to transport goods between China’s Shanghai port and the Netherlands’ port of Rotterdam from 33 days to 15 days by creating an alternative route to the Suez Canal. This includes not only transport infrastructure but also energy transmission and communication lines.”
But Tamzok noted that the Development Road faces stiff competition from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the U.S.-backed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, and rival Iranian plans to develop its own ports on regional trade routes linking Asia with the Middle East and Europe, and is wary of projects that could weaken its political and economic influence, as the Development Road does. At the same time, Iraq is not included in China’s regional transport projects, and “Ankara’s priority is to become the main corridor directly connecting China with Europe.” For Turkey, the Development Road is primarily about strengthening commerce with the Gulf states.
Next week’s summit comes against the backdrop of joint efforts between Iraq and Turkey to improve bilateral ties. Erdogan’s first visit to the Iraqi capital in 14 years saw the signing of a slew of agreements in the areas of energy, trade and sharing water resources. Last week, Turkey and Iraq announced they had signed what both sides called a “historic” military cooperation pact.
A key factor is Turkey’s ongoing military operation against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants based in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Ankara argues that removing the group from Iraq is crucial to its path of development and has called on Baghdad to give its full support to the anti-PKK operation.
But analysts point out that Turkey and Iraq have signed multiple agreements in the past that have been largely never fully implemented. Arzu Yilmaz is an associate professor at the Hurrah University of Kurdistan in Erbil and has written extensively on Turkey, Iraq and the Kurds. Signing a new agreement that envisages transporting oil from Basra when even the existing Kirkuk-Yumurtalik oil pipeline connecting Turkey and Iraq remains blocked inspires little confidence, he told Al-Monitor. Ankara turned off the tap for the last time in March 2023 following an international arbitration court ruling that it violated Iraqi sovereignty by allowing Iraqi Kurds to export oil directly to Turkey without Baghdad’s consent.
Iraq’s drought problem is at a critical point, but a water-sharing agreement between Turkey and Iraq, which manages the headwaters of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, has yet to be signed, Yilmaz added.