Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar Allaibi said on Sunday his country plans to reach an agreement with Iran on exploitation of the joint oil fields. He made the remarks during his speech at the Iraq Energy Forum 2017. The official said Baghdad is in serious talks with Tehran on joint use of oil fields in the two country’s borders. He called for improvement of relations with neighboring countries to diversify the country’s oil and gas revenues.
Iraq’s Kurdistan region, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan capital city of Erbil on Thursday to meet with senior Kurdish officials. “A referendum will be held in the near future”, on the Kurdistan Region’s independence, Barzani said during meeting with Guterres as cited by KDP media. There is good military and security cooperation between Peshmerga and Iraqi forces which resulted in huge victories”, he added. Guterres reportedly expressed the U.N.’s support for the Kurdistan Region and Iraq to restore peace to areas IS from where IS was expelled. Guterres said the international community “has not done enough” to help the Kurdistan Region in sheltering internally displaced people.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had killed three Islamic State terrorists after clashes northern of Tabqa district. Sources confirmed that intense clashes between the SDF and ISIS resulted in killing three terrorists as well for destroying their cars. Hundreds of civilians fled on Thursday from the Syrian city of alTabqa, which is still held by the Islamic State terror organization, amid intense fighting between the ISIS and SDF. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that hundreds of families left al-Tabqa and its surrounding areas and headed to the SDF-held area of al-Suidia Kabira, located to the north of al-Tabqa Dam.
The foreign minister Dr. Ibrahim Al-Jaafari met the first vice president of the cabinet, the foreign minister of Kuwait the Sheikh Sabah Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah on the sidelines of the Arab league meetings at the Dead Sea in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. During the meeting they discussed the bilateral relations between both countries and confirming the necessity of deepening it to serve the interests of both friendly people, and discussing the issues of common interests of Iraq, Kuwait and the Arab region. Both sides agreed on the importance of cooperation in all fields, and continuing the Consultations and adopting the Purposeful dialogues to save Arab unity, and facing the regional and international challenges.
The service’s chief, Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat, said in a statement that his forces took over 62 targets assigned in western Mosul since the start of the security offensive. The troops killed hundreds of militants and destroyed 286 booby-trapped vehicles belonging to the group. Police forces evacuated 25.000 refugees from areas it had recaptured, Jawdat stated. Iraqi forces recaptured eastern Mosul in January after three months of fighting to retake the city that fell to Islamic State extremists in 2014. Police and supporting forces said recently they became closer to the Old City’s Nuri al-Kabir mosque, where IS supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of the group’s rule in Iraq and Syria. They had earlier recaptured the city’s airport and biggest military base besides several other districts since the launch of the campaign. The army’s leadership said recently government troops became in control over 50 percent of the region.
Taiwan is increasing oil imports from Iraqi Kurdistan as local refiners take advantage of an open arbitrage to buy high-sulphur crude that can replace supplies cut by OPEC. State-owned CPC Corp bought 1 million barrels of Kurdish KBT crude for the first time in the second quarter, and Formosa Petrochemical Corp has resumed purchases of this grade after a near nine-month break, company officials said.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) liberated two villages from Islamic State (ISIS) control during the third phase of the Operation Wrath of Euphrates to isolate the ISIS-held Syrian city of Raqqa. The two villages are situated near Swediyah al-Kabirah to the west of Raqqa. The SDF are currently advancing towards Raqqa on three fronts, and while progress during the third phase has been rapid, some fierce clashes have broken out as ISIS militants look to stem the SDF’s advance. After cutting several strategic roads, the SDF are moving closer to their aim of surrounding and isolating the Syrian city entirely, in anticipation of an operation to liberate the city from the jihadist group. That operation is believed to start within the coming weeks. The SDF, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters who have been successfully fighting ISIS in northern Syria, has been steadily moving in on the jihadist group in Raqqa for the past five months. The operation to isolate the ISIS-stronghold of Raqqa began on November 5, 2016.
Sources with knowledge of military movements declared Iran is sending advanced weapons and military adviser’s to Yemen’s Houthis and is taking a greater role in the civil war in Yemen. A senior Iranian official Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Forces, met top IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) offcials last month to look at ways to empower the Houthis through trainings, arms and financial support. Even if Iran rejects the accusations from Saudi Arabia, there are informations and evidence that the Iranians are smuggling weapons into the area and it is known that winning the battle in Yemen will help define the balance of power in the Middle East. Iran’s plan is to create a Hezbollah-like militia in Yemen and encircle the Saudis, reason why some Sunni Muslim countries in the Middle East were alarmed by Iran’s activities. A source also said Iran is sending weapons in Yemen using ships directly or via Somalia, bypassing coalition’s efforts to intercepts shipsment and once the ships arrive in the region, the cargoes are transferred to small fishing boats, very hard to spot.
More than 500 Syrian and Iraqi refugees have been refused entry to Australia during more than a year of vetting, with 12,000 other Syrians being found eligible for resettlement, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said; the screening process had been based on intelligence provided by several countries, including the USA, Britain and Canada. The minister also justified the mesures taken in this year, taking the attack near Britain’s Parliament on Wednesday, in which an assailant with suspected links to Islamist terrorism killed three people and wounded dozens more using a car and a knife before being shot dead, as an alarm of the need of more security.
Iraq’s Ambassador to Kuwait Alaa al-Hashimi said on Thursday that his country is ready to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Al-Hashemi made the remarks while speaking in an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. Given its good relations with all regional countries, Iraq is ready to step in and help bring closer the views of Tehran and Riyadh, the ambassador said. He said that any measure by Iraq to help improve Iran-Saudi Arabia relations would not be a difficult one because there exists the required determination and good will on both sides.