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May 3 (Reuters) - Iraq expects to reach an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to restart oil export flows from the country's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region within two weeks, Oil Minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said at a conference in Baghdad on Wednesday.

Turkey halted Iraq's 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of northern exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The 40 days of stoppage are estimated to have cost the KRG more than $1 billion.

The ICC ordered Turkey to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorised exports by the KRG between 2014 and 2018. The Iraq-Turkey pipeline had been exporting about 75,000 bpd of federal crude, with the remainder from the KRG.

Baghdad and the KRG signed a temporary agreement on April 4 to restart northern oil exports.

But efforts to restart flows face further setbacks as the two governments iron out several aspects of the deal.

"We haven't reached an agreement with the Kurdish side," the Iraqi minister said on Wednesday.

The KRG had agreed for Iraq's state-owned crude marketing company SOMO to market its crude and, under the agreement on April 4, KRG oil revenues will be deposited in a bank account under control of the KRG, which Baghdad can access to audit, sources previously said.

Disagreements persist surrounding the logistics of the bank account.

Iraq's central bank has approved use of a KRG bank account with Citi in the United Arab Emirates for the SOMO oil sales, as well as sale of KRG oil, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

However, politicians in Baghdad are raising questions about the account, whose location has drawn opposition from some members of the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-aligned factions, one of those sources - and two others - said.

No bank account has been opened, Abdel-Ghani said on Wednesday.

Citi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"The issue (of reaching an agreement) is not technical it's political," an industry source said.

Iraq and the KRG have made progress in other areas.

Traders buying crude from the Kurdistan region have received contracts from SOMO for a proposed period of up to three months, according to two industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

But the mechanism to repay trader debts has yet to be resolved, those sources added.

The KRG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There is further uncertainty surrounding the reaction of the Turkish government, which needs to open its side of the pipeline in order for Iraq's exports to resume.

Previously, sources told Reuters Turkey was seeking in-person negotiations with Baghdad relating to damages it was ordered to pay in the arbitration case.

Turkey also wants to resolve a second arbitration case regarding unauthorised flows since 2018 before it restarts them, the sources said. Turkey's presidential elections on May 14 may cause further delays, two sources said on Wednesday.

The Turkish Energy Ministry did not immediately respond to a comment request.

Lost revenue from the halt for the KRG stands at over $1 billion, according to Reuters estimates based on exports of 375,000 barrels per day, the KRG's historic discount against Brent crude and 40 days of outages.

"The loss of this critical source of income is inflicting immeasurable damage on the Kurdistan economy and its oil and gas industry," the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR) said in a statement on Wednesday.

APIKUR's members include international oil and gas companies that have a direct or indirect interest in upstream oil or gas contracts in Iraq's Kurdistan region.

Many of these firms have been forced to stop production in the region as a result of the pipeline closure.

(This story has been refiled to correct the abbreviation to APIKUR's, from AKIPUR's, in the penultimate paragraph)

Reporting by Amina Ismail and Timour Azhari in BaghdadEditing by David Goodman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Iraq's oil minister expects northern exports to resume within two weeks - Reuters

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Governor of Central Bank of Iraq, Ali Mohsen Al-Alaq, met with Western Unions President for the Middle East and Asia Pacific, Jean Claude Farah.

The two talked in Baghdad about how Western Union can broaden its footprint in Iraq. Furthermore, the meetingaddressed how Western Union could be helpful in the digitalization of money transfer platforms in accordance with Iraqs governing laws and worldwide international standards.

Digitization has become increasingly important in the financial sector, with many countries around the world moving towards cashless societies. In Iraq, there has been a push towards digitization, with the Central Bank of Iraq working to modernize the countrys financial infrastructure.

One of the biggest international money transfer organizations in the world, Western Union has a network covering more than 200 nations and territories. Since it began offering much-needed financial services to individuals all around the country, Western Union has long regarded Iraq as a significant market.

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Western Union meets with Iraq's Governor of Central Bank - Iraqi News

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) - Iraq and TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) expect to kick-start a long-delayed $27 billion project within the next two weeks, Iraq's oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said on Wednesday.

Abdel-Ghani said at a conference in Baghdad he expected five side agreements related to the deal to be signed in the next two weeks, paving the way for implementation to commence.

The deal was signed in 2021 for TotalEnergies to build four oil, gas and renewables projects with an initial investment of $10 billion in southern Iraq over 25 years, but it was delayed amid disputes between Iraqi politicians over terms.

Iraq said last month it had agreed to a smaller 30% stake in the project, reviving the deal that Baghdad hopes could lure foreign investment back into a country enjoying relative stability after years of conflict and tensions.

QatarEnergy will also have a share in the project.

"We confirm that discussions are advancing," a TotalEnergies spokesperson said.

Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne said last week the two sides had reached an agreement on Iraq's stake in the project.

"I think (it) is a good setup with our finalising of all the paperwork," Pouyanne said on TotalEnergies' first-quarter results call last week.

"The government of Iraq confirmed the whole contract, no modification at all ... so that was for me more than a good news," Pouyanne said.

Reporting by Timour Azhari and Amina Ismail in Baghdad, and America Hernandez in ParisEditing by Mark Potter

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Total's $27 billion Iraq project expected to begin in two weeks, oil ... - Reuters

May 5,2023

Release Number 20230505-01

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TAMPA, Fla. - During the month of April 2023, U.S. Central Command, along with coalition and other partners, conducted a total of 35 D-ISIS operations, resulting in 13 ISIS operatives killed and 28 detained.

These operations showcase our enduring commitment to the lasting defeat of ISIS and the continued need for targeted military efforts to prevent ISIS members from conducting attacks and regaining a foothold. We remain focused on building local partner forces capabilities to prevent ISIS resurgence.

The following is a breakdown of D-ISIS operations for April 2023 by country:

In Iraq:

25 partnered operations

0 US-only operations

9 ISIS operatives killed

7 ISIS operatives detained

In Syria:

10 partnered operations

1 US-only operations

4 ISIS operatives killed

21 ISIS operatives detained

During Ramadan we observed a significant reduction in the number of ISIS attacks compared to previous years. We assess this is due to the increased operations by our partners.

In Iraq, CENTCOM troops continue to advise, assist, and enable Iraqi Security Forces, including the Kurdish Peshmerga, who lead the shared fight against ISIS in Iraq.

In Syria, CENTCOM relies heavily on our local partners, the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the fight with ISIS.

CENTCOM is committed to the enduring defeat of ISIS, said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander.

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April 2023 Month in Review: The Defeat ISIS Mission in Iraq and Syria - US Central Command

Leaked Pentagon papers showed in early April 2023 that the U.S. is allegedly following the inner workings of Russia's intelligence operations and is also spying on Ukraine, adding a new dimension to the United States' involvement in the Ukraine war.

While the U.S. has not actually declared war against Russia, the documents show that it continues to support Ukraine with military intelligence as well as money and weapons against the Russian invasion.

There is no end in sight to the war between Ukraine and Russia nor to U.S. involvement. While it is far from the first time that the U.S. became a third party to war, this scenario brings the Iraq War, in particular, to mind.

A comparison with the Iraq War, I believe, offers a useful way to look at the case of Ukraine.

The Iraq and Ukraine wars have notable differences from a U.S. foreign policy perspective chiefly, thousands of American soldiers died fighting in Iraq, while the U.S. does not have any ground troops in Ukraine. But assessing the Iraq War, and its long aftermath, can still help articulate concerns about the United States' getting involved in intense violence in another faraway place.

Here are three key points to understand.

1. Intervention doesn't guarantee success

Around the time former President George W. Bush announced the U.S. would invade Iraq in 2003, Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi Arabian Islamist who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, remained at large. While not obviously connected, the fact that bin Laden continued to evade the U.S. contributed to a general sense of anger at hostile regimes. In particular, Saddam Hussein defied the U.S. and its allies.

The Iraqi dictator continued to evade inspections by the United Nations watchdog group the International Atomic Energy Agency, giving the impression that he had weapons of mass destruction. This proved maddening to the U.S. and its allies as the cat and mouse game dragged on.

Bush reportedly had intense concerns about whether Saddam could use alleged weapons of mass destruction to attack the U.S., causing even more harm than 9/11 did.

A U.S.-led coalition of countries that included the United Kingdom and Australia invaded Iraq in March 2003. The "coalition of the willing," as it became known, won a quick victory and toppled Saddam's regime.

Bush initially enjoyed a spike in public support immediately after the invasion, but his polls shortly after experienced a downward trajectory as the war dragged on.

However, the U.S. showed little understanding of the politics, society and other important aspects of the country that it had taken the lead in occupying and then trying to rebuild.

Many decisions, most notably disbanding of the Iraqi Army in May 2003, revealed poor judgment and even ignorance because, with the sudden removal of Iraqi security forces, intense civil disorder ensued.

Disbanding the army caused insurgent militant forces to come out into the open. The fighting intensified among different Iraqi groups and escalated into a civil war, which ended in 2017.

Today, Iraq continues to be politically unstable and is not any closer to becoming a democracy than it was before the invasion.

2. Personal vendettas cannot justify a war

During his 24-year regime, Saddam lived an extravagant lifestyle coupled with oppression of civilians and political opponents. He engaged in genocide of Kurdish people in Iraq. Saddam was finally executed by his own people in 2006, after U.S. forces captured him.

Putin is equally notorious and even more dangerous. He has a long track record of violent oppression against his people and has benefited from leading one of the world's most corrupt governments.

He also actually possesses weapons of mass destruction and has threatened multiple times to use them on foreign countries.Saddam and Putin have also both been the direct targets of U.S. political leaders, who displayed a fixation on toppling these foreign adversaries, which was evident long before the U.S. actually became involved in the Iraq and Ukraine wars.

The United States' support for Ukraine is understandable because that country is fighting a defensive war with horrific civilian casualties. Backing Ukraine also makes sense from the standpoint of U.S. national security it helps push back against an expansionist Russia that increasingly is aligned with China.

3. It can divide the country

The Iraq War resulted in a rise in intense partisanship in the U.S. over foreign policy. In addition, recent opinion polls about the Iraq War show that most Americans do not think that the invasion made the U.S. any safer.

Now, the U.S. faces rising public skepticism about getting involved in the Ukraine war, another expensive overseas commitment.

Polls released in January 2023 show that the percentage of Americans who think the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine has grown in recent months. About 26% of American adults said in late 2022 that the U.S. is giving too much to the Ukraine war, according to Pew Research Group. But three-fourths of those polled still supported the U.S. engagement.

The average American knows little to nothing about Iraq or Ukraine. Patience obviously can grow thin when U.S. support for foreign wars becomes ever more expensive and the threat of retaliation, even by way of tactical nuclear weapons, remains in the realm of possibility. Aid to Ukraine is likely to become embroiled in the rapidly escalating conflict in Washington over the debt ceiling.

On the flip side, if the U.S. does not offer sufficient support for Ukraine to fend of Russian attacks and maintain its independence, adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran may feel encouraged to be aggressive in other places.

The comparison between the wars in Iraq and Ukraine makes it clear that U.S. leadership should clearly identify the underlying goals of its national security to the American public while determining the amount and type of support that it will give to Ukraine.

While many people believe that Ukraine deserves support against Russian aggression, current policy should not ignore past experience, and the Iraq War tells a cautionary tale.

Patrick James is the Dean's Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

The Associated Press

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Opinion: Three key things the Iraq War can teach the US about ... - Chattanooga Times Free Press