Ankara, Baghdad and Tehran will make a joint decision on potentially halting oil transit from Iraqi Kurdistan after the region's independence referendum, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Thursday.
"We have decided to establish a trilateral mechanism on northern Iraq together with Iran and Iraq and the decision about the end of the oil transit would be decided by the three countries together," Erdoğan said after his visit to Iran.
On September 25, more than 90 percent of voters participating in the plebiscite in Iraqi Kurdistan backed the region's independence from Baghdad. Ahead of the vote, the Iraqi government called on foreign states to stop importing oil from Iraqi Kurdistan and engage in trade only with the central government in the light of the referendum.
Erdoğan said that Turkey would soon close its border with northern Iraq and shut its airspace in response to the independence referendum. "Flights to northern Iraq have already been suspended, the airspace and borders will also close soon," he said.
"We demand the KRG take the necessary lesson from their mistakes and take steps to compensate for them as soon as possible," Erdoğan added.
After the vote, Baghdad refused to recognise the referendum as legitimate and stressed that it would not conduct talks with Erbil on the issue. The referendum has also been criticised by the United Nations, as well as by Tehran, Washington and Ankara.
