Special to WorldTribune.com

ANKARA — Turkey has established a major presence in Kurdistan’s energy sector.

Officials said Turkey’s state-owned companies were operating in the energy sector overseen by the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government.

They cited Turkish Petroleum and Botas, which share an interest in a new joint venture in Kurdistan in cooperation with the U.S. firm Exxon.

“Kurdistan has become a natural trading partner of Turkey because of location and shared interests,” an official said. “This is especially true regarding the energy sector.”

So far, more than a dozen Turkish companies, in a move that angered the central government in Baghdad, have applied to import natural gas through KRG. Ankara has also overseen a project to build an oil pipeline from Kurdistan to Turkey with an initial capacity of 200,000 barrels per day by 2014.

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