The Trump administration is urging Iraq to proceed with a project to connect its power grid with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, among steps to reduce Baghdad’s longstanding dependency on Iranian energy, U.S. and Arab officials said. The grid-connection venture has been the subject of intensive consultations in recent months and was discussed during Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s visit to Washington last week. But now the parties are moving toward sealing and executing the component deals, which would mark a major rapprochement between Iraq and former Arab adversaries who clashed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi said Friday the project was “on the verge of being defined and designed and put out to tenders.” He told an Atlantic Council online seminar that Iraq’s electrical grid would probably be tied up to those of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
A Saudi energy minister spokesman confirmed that agreement “is advancing toward completion” and includes an option for a direct connection between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. “It is vital that Iraq’s electricity grid be connected to the GCC,” added a senior Trump administration official, referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council, the six-member group of Gulf states. “We’ve been working on this.” The grid tie-up is just one of a series of major energy ventures under discussion between Iraqi and Saudi officials. Saudi Arabia has recently started talks on potential investments in the $2.2 billion Ar Ratawi project, which aims to redirect the large quantities of natural gas that Iraq wastes toward power generation, according to Mr. Allawi and a Saudi oil official.