Iraq resumes talks to join World Trade Organization

Unsplash/Saad Salim

• ‘High level’ negotiating team
• First talks in 2004
• Hope for regional security boost

Iraq has resumed discussions to join the World Trade Organization, almost 20 years since first applying for membership.

Negotiation teams from Iraq began preparatory meetings at the Geneva headquarters of the WTO this week.

The country’s first application was submitted in 2004 with the creation of a working party, although there has been little movement since then.

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A second meeting was held in 2008, but nothing since, except for an informal meeting in November 2017.

In January this year, ambassador Saqer AlMoqbel of Saudi Arabia, chairman of Iraq’s Accession Working Party, conducted a two-day visit to Baghdad, where he held high-level meetings with the government.

“Given its strategic location, Iraq’s integration into the global economy through WTO membership can help deepen regional economic integration, which in turn can contribute to peace and security in the region,” he said at the time.

A stumbling block for Iraq’s accession was discrepancies in the tariff structure between the federal government and the Kurdistan regional government, the official executive body of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, although these were harmonised in 2019 and approved by the Iraqi Ministry of Finance earlier this year.

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Riyad Fakher Al-Hashemi, director general of Iraq’s Department of Foreign Economic Relations, said in a statement: “This is the first time that the Iraqi negotiating team has reached this level of experience in the field of negotiation, which reflects the development of their capabilities and competence in dealing with complex issues related to membership of the WTO.”

To join the WTO, a government has to bring its economic and trade policies into line with the organisation’s rules and principles and negotiate with the entire WTO membership on guaranteed minimum levels of access to their domestic markets for goods and services.

Comoros and Timor-Leste officially became members of the WTO during the group’s 13th ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi in February, after negotiation periods of seven and 17 years respectively.