By Bosphorus News Energy Desk
Iraq's Transport Ministry said on September 11 that Baghdad and Ankara had completed the final draft of the general agreement governing infrastructure projects and transport development under the Development Road, following four days of negotiations on the legal, technical and financial terms of implementation.
Both sides agreed to submit the text to their highest government authorities for final approval before formal signature and contractual implementation, the ministry said. As of publication, Türkiye's Transport and Infrastructure Ministry had not published a separate statement on the completed draft on its official website.
The Iraqi delegation included the ministries of transport, oil, finance and foreign affairs, the Central Bank of Iraq, the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) and technical bodies. Türkiye was represented by officials from the transport and infrastructure, energy and foreign ministries, alongside Ziraat Bank.
The talks build on a framework developed over the past two years. Iraq, Türkiye, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates established the project's four-country structure on April 22, 2024, signing a memorandum in Baghdad on cooperation over the planned corridor from Grand Faw Port through Iraq and Türkiye toward European markets.
Ankara proposed resources for infrastructure
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu publicly set out Türkiye's financing proposal before the latest bilateral agreements were signed.
In a July 23 interview with Al Jazeera Net after talks in Baghdad, Uraloğlu said Türkiye had proposed that Iraq use its natural wealth, including minerals or oil, to finance the project after earlier attempts to assemble international financing had made little progress. Ankara had already presented a draft, he said, and the latest contacts produced greater Iraqi willingness to consider financing against oil.
Uraloğlu also described a corridor extending beyond railway and highway construction, saying fiber-optic infrastructure had already been incorporated into the Development Road while electricity transmission lines and possible oil and natural gas pipelines were also being considered along the route.
That discussion moved into written agreements in Ankara on July 28 during Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's visit. One memorandum covers railway and road transport through Ovaköy-Fishkhabur, while the other establishes a framework for developing transport infrastructure inside Iraq in exchange for natural resources.
Uraloğlu and Iraqi Transport Minister Wahab al-Hasani signed the documents, although the televised ceremony exposed a last-minute problem over the Development Road memorandum. Al-Hasani initially withheld his signature, prompting al-Zaidi to ask him on camera why the document had remained unsigned.
The memorandum was signed later that day. Al-Hasani subsequently said technical and protocol issues had arisen while the two sides were settling the final form of the text, adding that his ministry had completed the necessary amendments and wanted the agreement concluded.
Al-Zaidi also used the Ankara visit to place the project in a wider economic context, saying geography had given Iraq two rivers and that the country wanted the Development Road to become a third, economic river.
Rail compatibility enters the implementation file
A Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Ministry record published on August 18 detailed talks in Baghdad with Iraq's General Company for Iraqi Railways on implementation of the July framework.
Officials discussed the first railway sections to be built, the financing model, the use of oil resources, technical standards, tender and implementation procedures and the Ovaköy-Fishkhabur connection.
They also agreed to work toward technical compatibility and interoperability between the Turkish and Iraqi rail networks while negotiations continued on the financial and legal framework, a requirement that will determine whether the corridor can function as a continuous railway system rather than two national networks meeting at the border.
A second joint meeting followed on August 20 at the headquarters of the General Company for Iraqi Railways in Baghdad, where Iraq's Transport Ministry said discussions concentrated on financing arrangements and participation models intended for practical implementation.
The Iraqi delegation included representatives from the ministries of transport, oil, finance and foreign affairs together with the project's design consultant, while Türkiye sent officials from the transport and infrastructure, energy and foreign ministries.
Türkiye's Transport and Infrastructure Ministry published its account of the August 20 meeting on August 25, saying officials examined how oil resources allocated by Iraq could be converted into economic value, directed toward transport infrastructure and incorporated into a structure capable of sustaining financing flows.
The presence of the project's design consultant alongside the ministries responsible for finance, oil and transport brought the engineering and funding work into the same negotiating process as the two sides worked through the requirements preceding procurement and construction.
Border coordination moves forward
Border and transit arrangements have advanced alongside the railway and financing talks.
On August 17, Türkiye's Transport and Infrastructure Ministry said a delegation led by its Director General for European Union Affairs and Foreign Relations, Burak Aykan, met Iraqi Border Ports Authority chief Lt. Gen. Omar Adnan al-Waeli in Baghdad to discuss implementation of the Development Road, expansion of transit traffic, easier border crossings and higher bilateral trade volumes.
Al-Waeli then led an Iraqi delegation to Ankara, according to a September 2 statement by the Border Ports Authority, for talks on activating the Fishkhabur-Ovaköy crossing and connecting it directly to the Development Road.
The July memorandum provides for a new crossing, increased road and rail capacity and a joint expert committee to follow implementation. Al-Waeli said the Ankara meetings were intended to put existing agreements into effect rather than establish another political framework.
He also said the Iraqi delegation held trilateral talks with Turkish and Syrian officials on trade, transit traffic, the movement of goods and passengers and coordination between border authorities. That element rests on the Iraqi Border Ports Authority account; Bosphorus News did not identify a corresponding Turkish or Syrian official readout in the material reviewed for this report.
Oil and Ceyhan add a second corridor
The Development Road financing mechanism remains legally separate from the oil relationship between Ankara and Baghdad, although several of the same institutions now appear in both files.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during the July 28 summit that the previous Iraq-Türkiye Crude Oil Pipeline Agreement had expired on July 27 and called for a comprehensive replacement energy agreement.
Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) also secured a 15 percent stake in BP Energy Company of Kirkuk Limited, giving the Turkish state producer a direct position in the BP-operated Kirkuk project.
Erdoğan said at the joint press conference that al-Zaidi had offered to supply Türkiye with up to 1 million barrels of Iraqi oil per day, a figure the Iraqi prime minister confirmed, while Erdoğan put bilateral trade in the previous year at close to $17 billion.
On August 1, Türkiye's Energy and Natural Resources Ministry announced a one-year crude transport agreement between BOTAŞ Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ), SOMO and North Oil Company (NOC), allocating 750,000 barrels per day of capacity on the Iraq-Türkiye pipeline while the two governments worked on a longer-term arrangement.
SOMO consequently appears in both processes, as a party to the crude transport agreement and as a participant in the September Development Road negotiations.
The Ceyhan route has gained renewed weight as Iraq looks for alternatives to its dependence on Gulf export terminals, particularly as disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has increased interest in export routes that do not depend entirely on Gulf shipping.
In remarks made on August 4 and published by Türkiye's Energy and Natural Resources Ministry the following day, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said the Iraq-Türkiye pipeline had capacity for about 1.5 million barrels per day and that Ankara wanted to examine raising it to between 2 million and 2.5 million barrels while extending the system toward Basra.
Bayraktar said the expanded route could carry Iraqi production as well as crude from Gulf exporters such as Kuwait that did not want their entire export flow to depend on passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Uraloğlu had made a similar connection from the transport side in his July 23 interview, arguing that Hormuz would not have occupied the global agenda to the same degree if the Development Road had already been completed.
The agreement announced by Baghdad on September 11 has not yet been signed. Iraq's Transport Ministry gave no date for the formal signature, no overall value for the bilateral package and no details on how individual construction contracts will be awarded.
Sources: Iraqi Ministry of Transport, Iraqi News Agency, Iraqi Border Ports Authority, Türkiye's Directorate of Communications, Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Anadolu Agency, Al Jazeera, Bosphorus News review and reporting.