Alwaght- As Iraq has recently completed its cabinet and the politicians have settled this home policy's complicated case, the government of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi seems to now have free time to address foreign policy and after his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, he visited Syria on Wednesday, being the highest-ranking Iraqi official to visit Damascus since new Syrian government led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, better known for his mom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, assumed the power in December 2024.
Iraqi media had reported that Lebanon was also on list of al-Zaidi's regional diplomatic visits. However, this visit did not happen for unknown reasons and the PM returned home after a one-day Syria visit.
Syria's developments have always mattered to Iraq, and that importance has only grown with the reshaping of Syria's political structure, Damascus's new and transformed role in regional alliances and relationships, and Baghdad's security woes over the fragile internal situation in Syria following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad's government and the rise of sectarian (takfiri) armed groups to power.
Yet, Baghdad's views on the Syrian situation hardly are limited to worry and suspicion. The trajectory of regional trends and shifting priorities in Iraq's national interests and threat perceptions appear to have strengthened, among some Iraqi leaders and al-Zaidi himself, the case for a new chapter in relations with Syria.
In this regard, while al-Zaidi's remarks on the importance of ties between the two countries, including that "the people of Iraq and Syria are one nation in two countries", look more like diplomatic pleasantry, his eagerness to expand relations was evident elsewhere. He stressed efforts to develop joint partnership and cooperation across various fields, especially economic and social, strengthen security cooperation, unify positions on regional and international issues, and work toward peace and stability in the region.
Alongside these comments by the PM, the agreements signed during this short visit carry significant weight. Deals in energy, trade, and security were inked by both sides, set to usher in a new chapter in Baghdad-Damascus relations.
Economic cooperation appeared to top the agenda. According to official statements from both sides, discussions covered Iraqi oil exports through the Baniyas pipeline with a capacity of up to two million barrels per day, expanding trade volume, and joint cooperation to develop the agricultural sector toward food and economic integration.
On the Iraqi side, Baghdad has weathered a tough fiscal year and faces a grim economic outlook. With the Strait of Hormuz closed to regional oil exports as the war against Iran drags on, Iraq's own oil exports have run into trouble. Oil revenues account for more than 90 percent of total government income and budget, and a prolonged slump could tip the country into a financial crisis and possibly social unrest. Thanks to its close and extensive political and economic ties with Tehran, Iraq has likely faced fewer hurdles than its Gulf neighbors in exporting oil through the Strait of Hormuz and has reaped some advantages from the alliance, but that still does not fill the gap left by 5 million barrels per day of lost exports.
At the same time, the safe and common ground route of oil transit from Kirkuk to Turkey's Ceyhan port has its own challenges. Over the past years, Iraq and Turkey had major disputes over arbitrary oil transit from Iraq's Kurdistan to Ceyhan and the international court last year voted in favor of Baghdad's case, leading to halt of Kurdistan oil exports.
Kirkuk exports, for their part, have always been hostage to the internal dispute between Erbil and Baghdad over the Kurdistan Region's public budget and the two sides' respective export shares. Against this backdrop, restoring the oil export route through Syria to Mediterranean waters and global markets has emerged in recent months as one of Baghdad's principal options for a swift fix to the crisis.
The Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline dates to the early 20th century. After the discovery of the massive, historic Kirkuk field, Iraq's government of the day and international oil consortia set out to find the shortest and safest route that could carry the country's northern crude straight to European consumer markets without depending on long, high-risk sea lanes, such as the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal. The studies produced a strategic pipeline linking Kirkuk through Syrian territory to the port of Baniyas on the Mediterranean coast, a route that, together with the branch running to Tripoli in Lebanon, formed the backbone of Iraq's oil exports.
But as relations between the Iraqi and Syrian branches of the Baath Party soured from the late 1970s, and especially after the Iran-Iraq war broke out and Hafez al-Assad's government declared its support for Tehran in the conflict, Syria unilaterally shut down the pipeline carrying Iraqi oil. In the years after the 2003 fall of Saddam's Baathist regime, too, despite various governments' desire to diversify export corridors, factors including widespread insecurity, repeated bombings of oil infrastructure, and terrorist groups' infiltration of the border areas effectively blocked any revival of the pipeline. Now, however, the Strait of Hormuz crisis has prompted al-Zaidi's government to test its luck at breaking the four-decade-old curse.
On the Syrian side, al-Sharaa's government, too, has its eye on reviving the pipeline and reaping the economic benefits and transit revenues. Syria's economy, for all the promises and pledges from Western and Arab countries about lifting sanctions and making major investments, is faring even worse than it did under al-Assad; fuel inflation and punishing living conditions mean that even the glittering showcase the media present of post-Assad Syria has failed to persuade millions of displaced Syrians to return. Al-Sharaa's government is therefore in dire need of revenue from transiting Iraqi oil, and has likely been willing to offer Baghdad the security guarantees it demands.
Additionally, Iraqi government needs to boost partnership with Syria and stable security conditions in this country to advance its ambitious transit plans, including Great Faw Port and Development Route, that link Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and European markets through Iraq. In these relation, the two countries may discussed proposals for renewing border crossings, facilitating customs processes, introducing data exchange, and reviving transportation infrastructure.
The reopening in May of the Al-Qaim–Al-Bukamal–Tal Kojar border crossing on the Syrian side and the Rabia crossing on the Iraqi side, after more than a decade of closure, has raised hopes for reviving trade between the two countries. The crossing had been shut since 2014, after ISIS terrorist group overran the border areas.
But, alongside the economic talks, security issues remain among the foremost concerns for Iraqi officials regarding developments in Syria. The odd twist is that Iraq, scarred by the eruption of takfiri militants in Syria, their subsequent dispatch onto Iraqi soil, and the formation of ISIS's hellish caliphate, must now sit down and negotiate its security concerns with a former salafi-jihadi, if not a takfiri. Whether al-Jolani and his comrades' shedding of their old skin has fully allayed Iraqi anxieties is a question this visit does not definitively answer, but the weight of Damascus's position in Iraq's economic and security outlook is tangible in al-Zaidi's stepping forward to open a new chapter in relations.
Baghdad's security calculations do not stop at insecure borders and corridors. Any possible role Damascus might play in the American-Israeli chess game over Lebanon, as Trump has demanded, or even the dispatch of Syrian terrorists to Yemen, floated in the media after al-Jolani's unexpected trip to Riyadh, could provoke the ire of Iraqi society and resistance groups and subject Baghdad-Damascus relations to severe shocks.
During al-Zaidi's visit, al-Jolani's comment on the need for the Iraqi resistance groups to be disarmed can be seen as a interference in the Iraqi home affairs and draw reaction of pro-resistance factions in the parliament and so this can prove troublesome to al-Zaidi's government.
In general, the Iraqi PM's Damascus visit is an effort to transform the economic and security requirements into a new chapter of bilateral ties, one whose success will depend not only on the revival of oil transfer routes, but on the future behavior of the Syrian government and the extent of its commitment to Baghdad's security reservations and the mutual agreements.
