Iraq and Turkey have cleared a major hurdle in one of the Middle East’s most ambitious infrastructure ventures. Iraq’s Transport Ministry announced on Friday that the two countries had completed the final draft of a general agreement governing implementation of the Development Road, a sprawling transport corridor designed to connect the Gulf to Europe.
The draft grew out of a framework memorandum of understanding signed in late July between Iraqi Transport Minister Wahab al-Hassani and his Turkish counterparts, the ministry said in a statement. It now paves the way for the remaining government approvals, an official signing ceremony, and the eventual move into contractual execution.
Officials described the breakthrough as the product of four days of intensive talks in Baghdad, bringing together representatives from Iraq’s ministries of transport, oil, finance and foreign affairs, alongside the Central Bank of Iraq and the State Oil Marketing Organization, SOMO. The Turkish delegation included officials from the ministries of transport, infrastructure, energy and foreign affairs, as well as Turkey’s Ziraat Bank.
Negotiators focused on ironing out the legal, technical and financial details of the project and on defining implementation mechanisms, an effort aimed at spelling out each side’s obligations and rights along with the specific requirements of the targeted infrastructure works. Both governments agreed to forward the finalized draft to their most senior state bodies for final approval before moving to a formal signature.
Once completed, the Development Road is meant to link Iraq’s massive Grand Faw Port in the south to the Turkish border through an integrated network of railways and highways, creating a freight corridor between the Gulf and Europe that bypasses traditional maritime routes through the Suez Canal or the Strait of Hormuz.
The initiative reached a symbolic milestone in April 2024, when Iraq, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates signed a quadripartite memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of a visit to Baghdad by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Baghdad is banking heavily on the corridor to cement its role as a regional hub for trade and transport, while diversifying an economy still heavily reliant on oil exports.
