Zaidi has held talks with Turkey to stop oil smuggling from the Kurdistan Region

According to KurdPress, Alaa Talabani, the Iraqi Prime Minister's advisor on women's affairs, announced that Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Zaidi has a plan to end oil smuggling from the Kurdistan Region and has held talks with Turkish government officials about cooperation to stop this process.

In an interview with Al-Awla TV, Talabani said that oil smuggling from the Kurdistan Region continues and that the Iraqi Prime Minister has held talks with Turkish officials about Turkey's cooperation in this regard.Referring to the Iraqi government's concerns about the Kurdistan Region's oil revenues, he asked if the region's oil is not being smuggled, where is the income from it and does this income reach the people of Kurdistan?

Talabani also said that Zaidi wants to determine the amount of oil production in the Kurdistan Region and the amount of its exports and has serious concerns about the state of the region's oil revenues. In contrast, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Ministry of Natural Resources have in the past rejected Baghdad's accusations about smuggling the region's oil, stating that such statements are far from the truth and are made with the aim of misleading public opinion.

The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Kurdistan Region has also considered the accusation of oil smuggling an attempt to cover up the widespread process of smuggling and corruption in other parts of Iraq.The Kurdistan Region had previously announced that it was ready to resolve disputes and reach a mechanism with the Iraqi Oil Marketing Company (SOMO) to officially export oil through the pipeline; however, according to regional officials, Baghdad has delayed the official export process due to conditions that the region considers unconstitutional, as well as a dispute over the cost of production for foreign companies.