Turkey and Iraq sign five agreements in Ankara; Baghdad offers 1 million barrels of oil a day as the Hormuz crisis pushes Turkey to diversify supply

Summary

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi visited Ankara on July 29 for his first meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since taking office, signing five cooperation agreements. The central discussion: Iraq offered to supply Turkey with up to one million barrels of oil a day, as Ankara seeks alternatives to Strait of Hormuz tanker routes disrupted by the Iran US War 2026. The deal's structural detail is more significant than the headline supply figure: Turkey's state oil company TPAO has taken a 15% equity stake in Iraq's Kirkuk oil field alongside BP, ending the terms of the 1973 Iraq-Turkey pipeline deal and giving Ankara upstream production rights for the first time. Iraq installs a 41-year-old banker as PM after a five-month deadlock treated the meeting as a pivot from transit-fee arrangements to co-ownership of Iraqi production.

The split

Daily Sabah, the AKP-aligned outlet, framed the Ankara summit as a "historic" structural shift toward upstream production, foregrounding TPAO's expanded Iraqi footprint. Euronews was the first international broadcaster to anchor the deal in Turkey's response to the Strait of Hormuz disruptions, treating the 1M bbl/day offer as supply diversification rather than bilateral ambition. Forbes took the most sceptical line, calling the one-million-barrel figure "politics until loadings catch up" and arguing the Kirkuk equity stake is the only durable structural change. No reporting from Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government, which administers the Kirkuk area, appeared in the feed.

By the numbers

• 5, cooperation agreements signed at the Ankara summit on July 29
• 1 million, barrels of oil per day discussed as a potential Iraqi supply target to Turkey
• 15%, TPAO's equity stake in the Kirkuk oil field alongside BP
• 1973, the year of the original Iraq-Turkey pipeline agreement that Forbes says the new terms effectively supersede
• 1, meetings between al-Zaidi and Erdoğan since al-Zaidi took office (this is the first)

Why it matters

Turkey imports a significant share of its oil through routes passing near or through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iran US War 2026 has disrupted those routes and pushed up tanker insurance costs, giving Iraq, which borders Turkey directly and sits on one of the world's largest proven reserves, unusual leverage. A direct supply arrangement at volume, bypassing the Gulf entirely via a revived Kirkuk-to-Ceyhan pipeline, would reduce Turkey's exposure to largest oil supply disruption on record and give Iraq a buyer whose geography insulates it from the ongoing conflict.

What to watch

• Whether the five signed agreements are published with binding supply volumes or remain declaratory
• Any reaction from Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government on TPAO's Kirkuk equity stake, which it has historically disputed
• Whether the Kirkuk-to-Ceyhan pipeline is restarted or expanded to support the one-million-barrel target
• Iran's and Saudi Arabia's responses to Iraq deepening ties with Turkey during the Iran US War 2026