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Iraqi Electricity Ministry spokesman Ahmad Musa said, "the reduction in electricity supply hours is due to Iran's failure to export gas to Iraq as agreed, and that has affected the supply of electricity, coupled with problems in the power lines that need to be fixed."
On June 19, Iran and Iraq signed a long-term deal to assuage Iraq’s acute power problems. The deal came after a Saudi deal that aims to link Iraq’s power grid to the Gulf’s.
Saudi Arabia and Iraq signed an executive report on the principles of the electricity interconnection agreement between the two countries implementing the memorandum of understanding signed at the beginning of 2022.
According to a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, Iraq generally imports 50 to 70 million cubic meters of gas a day from Iran in summer and winter, which generates electricity. Recently, imports from Iran reached 5 to 8 million cubic meters per day, so much so that some production units stopped operating.
The United States has given Baghdad a waiver to import its energy needs from Iran as Washington has spearheaded one of the toughest sanctions in history on Iran.
In an interview with the Al-Arabiya on June 24, the Iraqi Defense Minister said that Turkey has not responded to Iraqi demands to withdraw its troops from the Zelkan military base in northern Iraq, and Turkish soldiers are 20 kilometers deep in northern Iraq and that the PKK exploited the chaos, and penetrated deeper into Iraqi territory.
Regarding Turkey's last week bombing of Zakho that killed nine tourists and injured over twenty others, the defense minister said, "Turkey used heavy artillery and is responsible for the deaths of civilians."
"Turkey took advantage of the fight against ISIS to enter Iraqi territory," the minister added.
"We suggested to Turkey the establishment of coordination centers in Diyarbakir and Mosul, we were surprised by the Turkish bombing, as the Turks did not coordinate with us," the minister revealed.
The recent Turkish assault on Iraqi civilians in northern Iraq caused massive nationwide protests against Turkey that resulted in heated diplomatic friction between Ankara and Baghdad. Turkey stopped issuing visas for Iraqis when protesters shut down Turkish Visa centers across Iraq.
In Iraq's southernmost city of Kut, desperate protesters burned a café named Istanbul when they could not find a Turkish Visa center or representative office.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu claimed that Turkey did not shell the tourist resort. Even though, 24 hours after the massacre, Turkey shelled the Parakhe tourist resort over twenty times.
Ankara cites PKK's presence for its continuous assaults and military incursions into northern Iraq. To fight them outside its territory, Turkey has set up more than 100 military outposts and five military airbases in northern Iraq.
Ankara frequently targets PKK fighters in the Kurdistan region, that is, northern Iraq, using drones and artillery, usually with significant collateral damage.
Regarding the killing of the tourists in the Kurdistan region's Zakho district, Kurdistan region deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani said that "over a hundred civilians have lost their lives in the past few years due to Turkey's continuous air raids in the Kurdistan region."
Community Peacemakers Teams (CPT) representative in Iraq Kamaran Osman said that the Turkish army has increasingly resorted to targeting residential areas.
"In one instance in which the CPT observed, a Turkish drone surveilled a PKK vehicle for an hour, and it waited until it was close to a civilian area and struck the vehicle, killing civilians with the PKK fighters," Osman explained.
Assistant Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Hossam Zaki, said on Wednesday that the issue of Syria's return to its seat in the League "needs intensified consultation," in light of the "lack of consensus" among the members, but he did not rule out resolving this issue "before or after the Arab summit."
The Arab League also announced it would hold its annual summit in Algeria on 1 November, after a three-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"There are several efforts and plans led by several Arab countries to officially initiate the reinstating Syria’s membership Arab League again," the assistant secretary said.
"It is not unlikely that Syria will return to the Arab League again, but not as close as some parties and countries hope, because no date has been set for this purpose," he explained.
Syria was suspended from the 22-member Arab League in November 2011, following the start of the country's civil war. Sparked by the brutal repression of anti-government protests that same year, the war has killed an estimated 500,000 people and displaced millions.
He said the final vote on the nomination of Mohammed Shia Sudani came after Qassim al-Araaji withdrew from running for prime minister.
Fatlawi said Sudani is close to the Coordination Framework and independent parliamentarians and hoped that the Kurdish parties to decide on the presidential candidate soon. The Kurds have been divided on settling on a common presidential candidate since late 2021.
Mohammed Shia Sudani was born in 1970 in Maysan province. He holds a bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences and was the minister of social affairs. He was the Governor of Maysan Province between 2009 and 2010.
Sudani is believed to have the best chance of becoming the next Iraqi premier. Just an hour after announcing his candidacy, Ahmed al-Asady tweeted his approval of Sudani for the position of prime minister.
Al-Asady said, "We congratulate our brother, Mr. Muhammad Shia' Al-Sudani, in his unanimous choice of the leaders of the Coordination Framework as a candidate for the presidency of the Council of Ministers. We ask God to grant him success in the performance of his duty towards his country and his people."
After almost a year of stalemate and changes and the withdrawal of candidates for the position of the Iraqi prime minister. The Iraqi parliament is expected to meet on Wednesdays to vote the candidate for prime minister into office.
However, the Kurds who are granted the office of Iraq's president are yet to settle on a joint candidate that can delay the voting of the premier into office.
He said the court received the complainants' statements and asked the Cyber Crimes Department from the Interior Ministry's Directorate of Technology and Information to send the court a copy of the recordings.
The supreme judge of the al-Karkh Investigation Court said the court had also decided to take a statement from the site owner that published the audio recordings and was waiting to receive his address to send him a notice.
Iraqi activist and journalist Ali Fadel, who resides in the United States, published an audio leak attributed to Al-Maliki, in which he dealt with some issues, most notably his relationship with the Sadrists. In the leaked audios, Maliki also accused the chief of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Massoud Barzani, of seeking to strike the Shiites by embracing the displaced Sunnis, as well as their leaders.
Also, the Turkish Army shelled the villages of Tal Muziq and Harbali in Shahba area. Ankara frequently targeted civilian centers in Northern and Eastern Syria that the Syrian Democratic Forces control.
Turkey is preparing to launch a new military operation in northern Syria. Announced a few weeks ago by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the plans for a cross-border incursion were endorsed on Thursday, May 26, by the Security Council, comprised of civilian and military leaders.
Turkey claims to create a “safe haven” for Syrian refugees in the strip of land it tried to invade.
In a summit in Tehran on July 19, Iran and Russia explicitly advised against any military operation in Syria, and Iran’s supreme leader called it “destabilizing.”
The Kurdistan region is the number one choice for many southern Iraqi tourists leaving the blistering heat of Iraqi summer. The tourists were part of a 200-person tourism group from Baghdad.
Children were among the victims, including a 1-year-old, the Kurdistan region health minister said in a statement that all the victims died before reaching a hospital.
For its part, Turkey denied carrying out the attack. The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Chavusoglu denied reports that Turkey carried out attacks targeting civilians in the Kurdistan region's Zakho district. Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday that Iraqi authorities should not fall for what he labelled a "trap". Though Iraqi and regional leaders held Turkey responsible.
PUK president Bafel Jalal Talabani extended his condolences to the victims of the attack and called for national unity to end breaching Iraq's sovereignty.
In a statement, the Kurdistan region council of ministers asked Turkey to avoid targeting its civilians and said, "We strongly condemn the shelling of the Parakhe resort near the Darkar border of the Zakho Autonomous Administration by Turkish forces which, unfortunately, caused the death and injury of some tourists."
Muqata Sadr, Iraq's popular cleric and its power broker, called the attack outrageous and demanded an end to the Iraq-Turkey security agreement.
"Turkey becomes more insolent, believing that Iraq can only respond with a weak condemnation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Al-Sadr said on Twitter.
Al-Sadr called for "escalation" and "reducing diplomatic representation with Turkey and closing airports and border crossings between the two countries."
Many pro-Sadrist protesters gathered in front of the Turkish embassy in Baghdad and took down its flag, while others shut down Turkey's Visa centers across Iraq. Citing its visa centers shutting down, Ankara temporarily withheld issuing visas to Iraqi citizens.
The Turkish army has frequently targeted the Kurdistan region, which has based more than 50 military outposts across the Iraqi-Turkish border, and over 15 intelligence bases. Turkey justifies its attack by citing PKK's presence in the northern Kurdistan region.
Northern Kurdistan region is home to many tourist resorts that thousands of tourists visit yearly, especially in the summertime. The attack would discourage thousands of tourists from revisiting the region.
Tourism is one of the crucial sectors that the KRG promotes to diversify its economy. Amal Jalal, head of the Kurdistan region tourism committee, told KurdSat News that they would work to relieve people's worries about the dangers in the tourist resorts.
Following our efforts to solve the problem of selling farmers' products in Penjwen and other cities of the Kurdistan Region, thanks to the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture that decided to ban imports that are abundantly produced in the Kurdistan region," Kurdistan region minister of agriculture Begard Talabani announcedon her Facebook page.
Tomatoes and Potatoes are abundantly produced in the Kurdistan region. Earlier, Talabani said that potato was the most grown crop in the region; it is yield is even more than grain.
"Kurdistan Region We would like to thank the Iraqi Minister of Agriculture, the Iraqi Minister of Justice, Mr. Gharib from the Agriculture Committee of the Iraqi Parliament and all those who have been concerned with us, minister Talabani added.
However, imports from Iran oblige farmers to sell their products at low prices, throwing them into financial distress.
Last week, farmers from Sulaimani tossed their products on the roads and shut down a highway in Sulaimani, citing low prices the farmers asked for low costs. One ton of cucumber was sold for only 60 US dollars.
The Iraqi ministry of agriculture published the import ban list that includes cucumber, potato, tomato, eggplant, melon, and watermelon, the most commonly grown products in the Kurdistan region.
The decision would help domestic produce to grow and restore credibility in farming which has long been ignored due to imports from Iran and Turkey.
Such an operation "will harm Syria, Turkey, and the region," Khamenei said during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran.
The supreme leader informed Erdogan that Iran would "certainly cooperate" with Turkey "in fighting terrorism," but he argued that a new offensive in Syria would be in the interest of "terrorists."
Iranian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Ebrahim Raisi met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Wednesday. Khamenei hosted Erdogan as a minor, and the supreme leader sat at the head of the hall with Erodgan next to Raisi and without displaying the Turkish flag next to Iran's.
Khamenei also called for a dialogue to resolve the Syrian conflict and for Turkey, Syria, Russia, and Iran to end the conflict together.
Days ago, the Syrian army deployed three hundred troops in the SDF-controlled Manbij, one of the cities Turkey aims to capture. Erdogan's visit is to clear the air with Syria's longtime backer.
Earlier, a Kremlin spokesperson confirmed that Ukrainian grain exports would also be on the agenda. With the war in Ukraine and the unstable global oil market, all three regional powers have stakes in what the future holds for the region.
The Karkh Court of Investigation has received a request from the prosecutor general to take legal action against leaked audio recordings attributed to the Rule of Law coalition leader Nuri al-Maliki, the Supreme Judicial Council said.
The council added that the court had launched a preliminary investigation into the recordings.
In recent days, the Iraqi activist and journalist Ali Fadel, who resides in the United States, published an audio leak attributed to Al-Maliki, in which he dealt with several issues, most notably his relationship with the Sadrists.
In the audio, al-Maliki accused the chief of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Massoud Barzani, of seeking to strike the Shiites by embracing the displaced Sunnis and their leaders.
The leaked audio has caused an uproar among Shiite leaders, most notably Muqtada al-Sadr, who called on Maliki to leave politics and hand himself over to the authorities.
The leaked recordings has deepened the political impasse and many warn of a possible clash between Al-Maliki and Al-Sadr.
The leaked audio recordings came after long delays in forming the next Iraqi government. As various meetings and alliances collapsed, the Sadrist MPs resigned from the council of representatives. A move Sadr described as an opportunity for other parties to form the government. However, long after the withdrawal of Sadrists and other blocs from the assembly, no prospect is visible of forming the next Iraqi government.
He added that Iran is considered the largest producer and distributor of electricity in West Asia and the strongest country despite the recent economic slowdown in the electricity industry.
In an interview with the Fars news agency, the Iranian energy minister, referring to Iran's capabilities in the field of electricity among West Asian countries, said, "Iran's power in the field of electricity is not only limited to the installed capacity of power plants, and due to the expansion of local know-how, not only in the areas of construction, upgrading, repairs and maintenance of power plant units. We are a self-sufficient country in the world, but we have significant exports of all kinds of engineering services in the field of electricity."
According to a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, Iraq generally imports 50 to 70 million cubic meters of gas a day from Iran in summer and winter, which generates electricity. Recently, imports from Iran reached 5 to 8 million cubic meters per day, so much so that some production units stopped operating. The United States has given Baghdad a waiver to import its energy needs from Iran as Washington has spearheaded one of the toughest sanctions in history on Iran.
On July 17, Saudi Arabia and Iraq signed the executive report on the principles of the electricity interconnection agreement between the two countries implementing the memorandum of understanding signed at the beginning of 2022.
The electrical interconnection will link from Arar in northern Saudi Arabia to Yusufiya near Baghdad and have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts and a voltage of 400 kilovolts, with a length of 435 km.
Iraq hopes to increase its electricity production as the country provides electricity to households only several hours a day, and the rest is supplied by generators that pose tremendous health problems. Iraq's electricity problems deepen during the summertime as demand for electricity increases in blistering heat.
After his meeting with the leaders of Turkey and Iran in Tehran, Putin added that the three countries agreed to continue consultations on Syria.
Putin said Russia and Iran discussed the use of national currencies in bilateral settlements.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian President spoke from Tehran of progress in talks on the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea and also thanked his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in Tehran.
"Thanks to your mediation, we have made progress. Not all issues have been resolved yet, this is true, but there is movement, and this is good," Putin said, addressing Erdogan in comments cited by the Kremlin in a statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the need to create the necessary conditions to enable the Syrians to decide the fate of their country, independent of any external interference.
"We consider it one of the tasks of the near future to agree on specific steps to promote a comprehensive internal Syrian political dialogue, that is, to implement our agreement to create conditions under which the Syrians can decide themselves, without outside interference, the fate of their country," Putin said at a press conference with his Turkish counterparts, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ibrahim Raisi.
Putin explained that for this purpose, "our three countries took the initiative to establish a constitutional committee at the Syrian National Dialogue Conference in Sochi in 2018."
He added that with the support of the ambassadors of Russia, Iran and Turkey, as well as with the participation of the Secretary-General United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, the Syrian parties had made progress within the committee.
The war-busy President added, "The illegal presence of the US army in Syria is destabilizing," accusing the United States of destabilizing countries, and affirmed his support for the "joint security project with Iran and Turkey."
Iranian state television announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had arrived in Tehran on Tuesday to attend an Iranian-Russian-Turkish summit.
President Putin met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, as well as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It is Putin's second foreign trip since the start of the war in Ukraine last February.
Raisi expressed his hope that the Russian President's visit would be a "turning point for future cooperation" between the two countries.
During his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his accompanying delegation in Tehran today, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for the Americans to be expelled from the area east of the Euphrates in Syria.
Iranian state television reported that Khamenei told Putin that Tehran and Moscow should beware of "Western deception," calling for long-term cooperation between Tehran and Moscow.
The supreme leader told Erdogan that any military operation in northern Syria would have destabilizing effects on the region, which contradicts his earlier call for removing the US from East Euphrates because the US presence in the east Euphrates is dependent on the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, whose main element is the YPJ, a group that Turkey labels terrorist and aims to remove them from Northern Syria in its upcoming operation that Khamenei advises against.
Referring to the Ukraine crisis, Khamenei said, "War is a challenging event, and Iran is not happy at all because ordinary people are suffering from it." "The dollar must be gradually removed from global trade, and this can be done gradually," he added.
Khamenei said: "Were it not for the Russian response to "NATO" in Ukraine, the Western countries would later have fabricated this same war on the pretext of the Crimea... We consider that Russia, under your leadership, has preserved its independence, and the Americans must be expelled from the eastern Euphrates region in Syria."
On the summit's sidelines, Putin and Erdogan met to discuss an agreement to resume Ukrainian grain exports from the Black Sea.
Earlier, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Syrian settlement process in the Astana format, sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran, will be the center of attention during President Putin's visit to Tehran.
For his part, Yury Ushakov, the Russian President's aide, announced that Putin, Erdogan and my President would sign a joint statement after their meeting in Tehran, a draft of which has already been prepared.
Also, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov did not rule out that contact would take place between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after Putin visits Iran.
Turkish media reported that Erdogan intends to discuss with Putin during a meeting in Tehran the results of the four-way meeting in Istanbul on the issue of Ukrainian grain exports.
Iranian state television had quoted the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as telling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that a military strike on Syria would destabilize the region.
According to the report, Khamenei declared, "Any military strike on Syria will harm the region and benefit the terrorists."
The deployment of the forces in Manbij is under an agreement between Russia, Syria and the Syrian Democratic Forces to counter Turkish attacks.
A number of other Syrian army troops have been deployed inside Srin airport on the Kobane, east of Aleppo, and have established new positions.
This is the largest number of Syrian army troops deployed in the region since the end of 2019, coinciding with Turkey's increased threats to launch a military operation against areas under SDF control. Turkey threatens to move its troops thirty kilometers deep into Rojava territory.
The city of Manbij is the last SDF stronghold to hold on to territory it controls west of the Euphrates in northern Syria. Ankara hopes to eliminate SDF presence west of Euphrates in its upcoming operation in Rojava.
On Sunday, Zelensky sacked Ukraine’s SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, and Ukrainian prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, citing their failure to root out people in their agencies that worked with Russian special services.
In the televised address Zelensky said, "connections detected between employees of Ukrainian security forces, and special services of Russia pose very serious questions to the relevant leadership."
Since the Russian troops marched into Ukraine in late February 2022, a significant number of spies have been arrested among the ranks of Ukrainian security forces.
Andriy Smirnov, one of Zelensky's top advisers, clarified that the officials have not been fired, as initially suggested, but merely removed pending an investigation. The officials themselves were not charged with spying or treason but merely removed for failing to detect spies in their agencies.
"As of today, 651 criminal proceedings have been registered regarding treason of the prosecutor’s office, pretrial investigation bodies and other law enforcement agencies," Zelensky explained in his address.
Zelensky said that over 60 employees of the prosecutor’s office remain in Ukrainian occupied territory working against Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has dragged on for over five months and Russia is incrementally occupying more territory.
Twelve labor inspectors were sworn in before Kwestan Mohammed, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs to legally and according to the applicable laws of the region, as official inspectors to visit and follow up on private sector projects after years of oversight.
Earlier, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRG) said that they pay attention to the private sector, labor rights and creating job opportunities for young people and have taken several steps in that direction.
She added that the number of companies and workers has increased to 16,000 companies and 133,000 workers.
On June 15, deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan region Qubad Talabani announced that from now on, private sector employees would be retired with a pension similar to state employees.
The Kurdistan region has taken several steps to diversify the region’s economy, which is heavily reliant on oil. The steps are taken to strengthen people’s beliefs to work in the private sector and believe that they would have a secure future in the private sector.
"The anonymous soldiers of Imam Zaman (AS) in the Intelligence Organization of the IRGC arrested the leader of the biggest gang that trafficked Iranian girls to Erbil," Tasnim news reported today, July 18.
According to Tasnim News agency, the woman promoted homosexuality, gambling, fraud and denigration of illicit sexual relations and published them online have been among this person's actions.
The leader is a woman named Zara Mansouri Hamadani, alias Sara, who was identified by Iranian position media abroad as a LGBT activist.
"After months of investigation and monitoring of this woman, the intelligence organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have discovered a large gang smuggling Iranian women to Erbil [in the Kurdistan region]," the statement explained.
The gang, through two people named Ali Reza Farjadi Kia and Katy, assisted by "Sara", took hundreds of Iranian women to Erbil. According to the report, more than 1,000 of these girls have been sold in Erbil.
Prostitution has increased in Iran due to the US-led sanctions on the Islamic republic. A devalued currency and lack of Jobs have obliged many girls to resort to prostitution to pay for their lives and, in some cases, education.