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Tehran Receives $1.6 Bln in Gas Debt from Iraq

(Asharq Al-Awsat)
(Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Tehran Receives $1.6 Bln in Gas Debt from Iraq

(Asharq Al-Awsat)
(Asharq Al-Awsat)

Iran said on Thursday it has received $1.6 billion from Iraq to settle part of the debts it has sought from its neighbor since 2020 for the supply of gas.

“In light of the active energy diplomacy, and after months of negotiations, $1.6 billion in arrears... for gas exports to Iraq have been received,” Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji tweeted, Tasnim news agency reported.

“Since the beginning of the year, compared to 2021, the country's gas export volume has increased by 25% and the collection of revenues has also increased by 90%,” Owji added. The Iranian new year begins on March 21.

Iraq’s Electricity Ministry spokesman Ahmed Moussa said the government has started paying off its debts for gas imports from Iran by borrowing from the Trade Bank of Iraq, adding that the Ministry of Finance deposited the money in the Credit Fund.

“We are still relying on Emergency Support Law to repay our dues,” Tasnim quoted Moussa as saying.

Baghdad had been scheduled to pay that amount to Tehran before June.

The debt dates back to 2020, but payment was stalled amid sanctions against Iran by the United States.

Iran’s deputy oil minister, Majid Chegeni, said last month that an agreement had been reached with Iraq for it to pay $1.6 billion in arrears by the end of May.

Despite its immense oil and gas reserves, Iraq remains dependent on imports to meet energy needs.

Iran provides a third of Iraq’s gas and electricity needs, but supplies are regularly cut or reduced, aggravating shortages caused by daily load shedding.

Separately, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Thursday that Iranian authorities have seized a vessel carrying 90,000 liters of smuggled fuel in the waters around Kish Island in the Gulf.

The captain and five other crew members were issued with criminal warrants and have been detained, IRNA added.

Iran, which has some of the world’s cheapest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the fall of its currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling by land to neighboring states and by sea to Gulf Arab countries.

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Pope Leo XIV Urges Release of Imprisoned Journalists, Affirms Gift of Free Speech and Press

TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
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Pope Leo XIV Urges Release of Imprisoned Journalists, Affirms Gift of Free Speech and Press

TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)

Pope Leo XIV on Monday called for the release of imprisoned journalists and affirmed the "precious gift of free speech and the press" in an audience with some of the 6,000 journalists who descended on Rome to cover his election as the first American pontiff.

Leo received a standing ovation as he entered the Vatican auditorium for his first meeting with representatives of the general public.

The 69-year-old Augustinian missionary, elected in a 24-hour conclave last week, called for journalists to use words for peace, to reject war and to give voice to the voiceless.

He expressed solidarity with journalists around the world who have been jailed for trying to seek and report the truth. Drawing applause from the crowd, he asked for their release.

"The church recognizes in these witnesses - I am thinking of those who report on war even at the cost of their lives - the courage of those who defend dignity, justice and the right of people to be informed, because only informed individuals can make free choices," he said.

"The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press."

Leo opened the meeting with a few words in English, joking that if the crowd was still awake and applauding at the end, it mattered more than the ovation that greeted him.

Turning to Italian, he thanked the journalists for their work covering the papal transition and urged them to use words of peace.

"Peace begins with each one of us: in the way we look at others, listen to others and speak about others," he said. "In this sense, the way we communicate is of fundamental importance: we must say `no´ to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war."

After his brief speech, in which he reflected on the power of words to do good, he greeted some of the journalists in the front rows and then shook hands with the crowd as he exited the audience hall down the central aisle. He signed a few autographs and posed for a few selfies.

It was in the 2013 audience with journalists who covered the election of history's first Latin American pope that Pope Francis explained his choice of name, after St. Francis of Assisi, and his desire for a "church which is poor and for the poor!"