IRAQ will export oil to Turkey while bypassing the separatist Kurdistan region, the two country’s leaders said yesterday.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke in Ankara after a meeting that also included Mr Erdogan’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Following the meeting, the Turkish president said talks were under way on closing his country’s border with the autonomous Kurdish region in response to last month’s unilateral independence referendum.