Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov 17 /Trend A.Taghiyeva /
Turkey will continue energy cooperation with Iraq's Kurdish autonomy, and this partnership will not cause any inconvenience to the central government of Iraq, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on Saturday, TRT Haber reports.
He noted that Turkey and Kurdish autonomy will cooperate in the exchange of oil and oil products. Thus, the autonomy will supply oil to Turkey, and Turkey, in turn, will export oil products to the Kurdish autonomy.
"There is an acute shortage of energy and petroleum products in such large province of Kurdish autonomy as Sulaymaniyah. Our partnership will help autonomy to solve this problem," Erdogan said.
Iraqi officials have previously criticized the cooperation of Kurdish autonomy and Turkey in the field of energy.
Relations between the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq and Baghdad deteriorated in October 2011 after US-based Exxon Mobil received permission from the Kurdish authorities on the exploration and production of oil in this Iraqi region. Baghdad considered the deal illegal and warned the company that if it did not abandon the agreement with the Kurds, its deals with the central Iraqi government may be revised.
The Kurdish administration in northern Iraq has oil reserves of 45 billion barrels.