Turkey has been "driven by greed" in an escalating row over oil pumped from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and shipped overseas, Baghdad's top energy official told AFP on Sunday.
The remarks by Hussein al-Shahristani, deputy prime minister responsible for energy affairs, represent a significant ratcheting up of rhetoric after Baghdad took legal action against Ankara in a widening dispute over Iraq's prized natural resources.
Tensions have markedly worsened between the two countries in recent years.
But the shipping of oil extracted from the three-province Kurdistan region last month has further chilled ties both between Baghdad and Ankara, and between the central government and Kurdish authorities in Arbil.
"We believe Turkey has been driven by greed to try to lay (its) hands on cheap Iraqi oil," Shahristani, a former oil minister, said in an interview.
"They have facilitated this smuggling, and obviously this has undermined the relationship" between the two countries.
Speaking from his office in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, he continued: "We had reached a fairly good level of cooperation before Turkey's greed has taken over and allowed itself to help in smuggling Iraqi crude."
The dispute between Baghdad and Kurdish authorities centres around interpretations of Iraq's constitution, with both sides insisting they are behaving legally.
The central government insists it has the sole right to export Iraqi crude, and also says contracts between Kurdish authorities and foreign energy firms without its expressed consent are illegal, statements Arbil rejects.
But the row took on a new dimension when Turkey announced last month that oil pumped from Kurdistan had been shipped to international markets, escalating a long-simmering row between Iraq and both Ankara and Arbil.
Iraq responded by filing the arbitration request on Friday, asking the ICC to order Turkey and its state-owned pipeline company to "cease all unauthorised transport, storage and loading of crude oil," and added it was seeking financial damages of more than $250 million (180 million euros).
"Turkish action has been extremely harmful to Iraq," Shahristani said. "It has undermined the economy, it has deprived the Iraqi people of revenues."
"This is a hostile action that no other neighbour has taken against Iraq."
"I call on the Turkish government to reconsider that position because of its potential damage of our bilateral relationship."
Source: AFP