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Iraq has sent a government delegation to neighboring Syria to discuss the possible revival of a 850-km pipeline that once transported Iraqi crude to Europe via Syria.
An official statement said the talks would also cover increasing trade between the two countries following the collapse of the previous regime of Bashar Al-Assad.
“The talks will focus on the revival of the Kirkuk pipeline that transported crude oil to a Syrian port on the Mediterranean,” a statement by the Iraqi Prime Minister’s office said at the weekend.
The pipeline, dating back to the early 1950s, linked Iraq’s oil-rich Northern Kirkuk Governorate with the Western Syrian port of Baniyas. It was crippled during the 1956 Suez crisis before it was rehabilitated in the following years.
Between 1982 and 2000 Iraq shut the pipeline due to political rifts with Syria and it was crippled after sustaining heavy damage during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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