Middle East war live: Iran confirms death of top security official Ali Larijani

Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government have agreed to resume oil exports to Turkey’s strategic Ceyhan energy hub on the Mediterranean.

KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a post on X that the decision had been made to allow oil to flow through the Kurdistan pipeline “given the extraordinary circumstances facing the country”.

Iraq’s oil minister said exports would resume on Wednesday.

Baghdad has been seeking to use the pipeline as an alternative route for crude flows disrupted by the Iran conflict and accused Iraq’s Kurdish authorities of refusing to allow crude exports through the pipeline. The KRG rejected the accusation and said Baghdad had failed to address security and economic challenges facing the sector.

Oil production in Iraq has plunged to around 1.5mn barrels a day as the regional war has shut off the Strait of Hormuz. The pipeline previously averaged 450,000 b/d but was shut down for much of the past three years, owing to a dispute between Baghdad and the KRG, and has only intermittently resumed flows.