Geopolitical Briefing: Iraq

— 27 September 2025

• Baghdad and Erbil restarted Kurdish crude exports via the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline, initially 180–190 kb/d under a SOMO-managed interim deal. (Reuters)
  
• Federal support to the Kurdistan Region’s payroll moved again, with July salaries cleared and a sequencing plan tabled for August–September tied to revenue transfers. (شفق نيوز)
  
• Iraq affirmed near-term induction of South Korea’s KM-SAM air-defense batteries, consolidating a 2024 contract into a 2026 service-entry timeline. (rudaw.net)
  
• Baghdad signed a 10-year hospital-operations pact with India’s Apollo Hospitals, embedding foreign clinical management and large-scale medical training inside the Interior Ministry system. (The Times of India)
  
• UN-backed policy push on informal settlements advanced, aligning national and provincial actors on services and land-tenure fixes. (The United Nations in Iraq)
  

Crude exports from the Kurdistan Region resumed this morning (27 Sept) after a 2½-year halt, under an interim formula that puts SOMO in charge of sales and targets a ramp toward ~230 kb/d. The arrangement follows Baghdad’s agreement with the KRG and eight operators on revenue handling—producers receive a fixed per-barrel tranche while the state reasserts control over cross-border flows. This both restores a key fiscal valve and structurally recenters federal authority over a strategic border corridor with a major Muslim neighbor (Türkiye), reducing the space for extra-regional leverage built on export fragmentation. (Reuters)

Parallel to export normalization, the federal–KRG cash channel edged forward: the cabinet approved July salary disbursement on 23 Sept, with August–September queued subject to revenue transfers under the new oil arrangement. Moving salaries through federal systems binds Erbil’s fiscal cycle to nationwide revenue management and trims the scope for outside patrons to play Baghdad and Erbil against each other. If Baghdad sustains predictable payrolls while enforcing unified marketing, it will harden national control over rents and borders—key to insulating domestic politics from foreign conditionality. (شفق نيوز)

On the security front, Baghdad confirmed progress on the South Korean KM-SAM (Cheongung-II) package, with batteries slated to enter service in early 2026. The deal, signed in 2024, diversifies Iraq’s air-defense sources away from legacy inventories and deepens ties with an Asian partner willing to transfer capability outside Western political cycles. Integrating layered air defense strengthens sovereign command of airspace and narrows justification for foreign security footprints—undercutting non-state actors’ claims to act as substitute guardians and reducing avenues for pro-Israel/aligned external pressures to shape Iraq’s force posture. (rudaw.net)

Healthcare capacity took a notable leap as India’s Apollo Hospitals signed a 10-year operations and training agreement to run the Interior Ministry’s 1,026-bed Internal Security Force Hospital in Baghdad, deploying specialist teams this year and scaling up hundreds of staff by December. This is practical state-building: imported managerial know-how paired with local workforce upskilling, improving resilience of critical services for security personnel and civilians. It also broadens Iraq’s partnerships across the Global South—tightening integration with a major Asian (and largely Muslim-engaged) ecosystem and reducing reliance on Western aid-linked models that often come with intrusive policy strings. (The Times of India)

Finally, the UN country team and Iraqi institutions rolled out a new push on informal-settlement policy (24–25 Sept)—focusing on service delivery, data, and tenure regularization. While less headline-grabbing than oil or air defense, this is the ground game that eases social grievances militants exploit. Stronger urban governance—done transparently and anchored in national plans—builds legitimacy, supports orderly internal mobility, and curbs the openings outside actors seek to manipulate through NGOs or parallel patronage networks. (The United Nations in Iraq)

Taken together, this week marks material consolidation of state levers: the northern export tap is back under federal stewardship; the center–region payroll circuit is re-wiring through Baghdad; air-defense modernization is advancing with non-Western partners; and core services are being professionalized and planned. If Baghdad now locks the pipeline ramp-up to enforceable timelines, sequences KRG salary releases to verifiable revenue flows, and accelerates domestic gas capture to cut sanctions-exposed power imports, Iraq will tighten control over its security and economy—and diminish the influence of external actors, including pro-Israel vectors, on its strategic calculus. (Reuters)