To confront US sanctions... How do the Iranians view the Iraqi oil-gas barter?

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[size=52]To confront US sanctions... How do the Iranians view the Iraqi oil-gas barter?[/size]

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Tehran and Baghdad reached an agreement to barter Iranian gas for Iraqi black oil, to ensure the operation of Iraqi electricity production plants (Shutterstock)
Rasoul Al Hay
7/13/2023
Tehran- After marathon negotiations that lasted for several days, technical committees from Tehran and Baghdad reached an agreement to barter Iraqi black oil With Iranian gas, to ensure the operation of Iraqi electricity production plants on the one hand, and to confront the problem of US sanctions on Iran on the other hand.[/size]
[size=45]A few days after Tehran reduced gas supplies to Baghdad due to its delay in paying the debts accumulated on it, Ihsan Yassin Al-Awadi, Director of the Office of the Iraqi Prime Minister, and the Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad, Muhammad Kazem Al Sadiq, signed the agreement to avoid financing problems due to the US sanctions imposed on Iran. .[/size]
[size=45]Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani announced - on Tuesday - that the barter agreement came "to end the problem of American approval of payments to Tehran," explaining - in a televised speech - that the US Treasury's measures obstructed the 2018 agreement, which includes a mechanism for providing humanitarian and food materials. To the Iranian side in exchange for the price of gas.
Tehran and Baghdad reached an agreement to barter Iranian gas for Iraqi black oil, to ensure the operation of Iraqi electricity production plants (Shutterstock)
Rasoul Al Hay[/size]
[size=45]Payment of all Iranian dues
Al-Sudani stressed that Baghdad had paid all its dues for Iranian gas amounting to 11 billion dollars, and deposited it in the account of Iranian companies, while the spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, Ahmed Musa, explained that the barter agreement secures Iran's access to gas dues by exchanging it for black oil.[/size]
[size=45]This comes about a month after Washington agreed to Baghdad's request to release $3 billion in financial dues to Iran for its gas and electricity exports to Iraq. However, the barter agreement shows the blowing up of the previous agreement between the two countries in order for Tehran to import food and medicine through its released funds.[/size]
[size=45]Iranian observers believe that the agreement helps the Iraqi side to overcome the current electricity crisis, but it does not benefit the Iranian economy, which is besieged by US sanctions.[/size]
[size=45]Criticism and pessimism
In the context, the economist Bahman Arman finds it very difficult to implement the agreement in its entirety, because the process of laying pipelines between the two countries is useless, and transporting very large quantities of Iraqi oil by truck to Iran will take a long time.[/size]
[size=45]Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Arman recalls the threat of Iranian oil shipments to be arrested on the high seas due to US sanctions imposed on Iranian oil exports, stressing that Tehran's oil production exceeds its exports, which flow to buyers at prices lower than global markets. Tehran also suffers from the accumulation of huge quantities of oil, and it is unreasonable to import Iraqi oil to stockpile it inside the country.[/size]
[size=45]The Indonesian Coast Guard announced - on Tuesday evening - that it had seized a tanker flying the Iranian flag. On suspicion of illegally transporting oil, explaining that he had detained the ship “Arman 114”, which was carrying 272,569 tons of light crude oil, after it was seen transporting oil without a permit to the ship “Stenos” that flies the flag of Cameroon in the Natuna Sea in the north of the country. .[/size]
[size=45]The need to lift US sanctions
Arman believed that the agreement aims to reassure Iranian public opinion regarding Tehran's receipt of its dues for gas exports, pending a practical solution through which Iran can return its money or pay the dues owed to it as a result of importing medicine and basic commodities.[/size]
[size=45]The Iranian economist believes that his country has not ratified the laws of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) related to combating money laundering and terrorist financing as a major dilemma that is constraining its economy, stressing that Tehran's efforts to strengthen its relations with neighboring countries will not work unless the US sanctions are lifted and Tehran is removed from the blacklist.
A calculated step
for his part, Iranian economist Saeed Laylaz attributes the reason for Tehran's acceptance of bartering its gas for Iraqi oil to its keenness to help the Iraqi government provide electricity service to its people, describing the agreement as the ideal solution in light of Washington's lack of agreement to transfer funds to Iran.[/size]
[size=45]And he believed - in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that Tehran could employ the oil imported from Iraq in order to export it to another country, or refine it in Iranian refineries near the Iraqi border, or import it in the form of oil derivatives such as gasoline and diesel.[/size]
[size=45]He concluded that the exchange of Iraqi oil for Iranian gas is a positive step to overcome the emerging problems in the political and economic relations between Tehran and Baghdad, stressing that the Iranian economy has become too large to be affected negatively or positively by $11 billion.[/size]
[size=45]Source: Al Jazeera[/size]
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