Iraq fears power cuts as US ends waiver to buy Iranian electricity
BAGHDAD
The United States has declined to renew a waiver that had allowed Iraq to buy electricity from Iran without running afoul of sanctions.
The previous waiver expired on March 8 and the U.S. Department of State did not renew it, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said in a statement.
The decision came as part of President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” on Iran, the statement said.
“We urge the Iraqi government to eliminate its dependence on Iranian sources of energy as soon as possible, and welcome the Iraqi Prime Minister’s commitment to achieve energy independence,” the statement said.
Despite its oil and gas wealth, Iraq has suffered from decades of electricity shortages because of war, corruption and mismanagement and has become heavily reliant on imported Iranian gas as well as electricity imported directly from Iran to meet its electricity needs.
Power outages are common, especially in the scorching summer months. Many Iraqis have to rely on diesel generators or suffer through temperatures that exceed 50 degrees Celsius.
The waiver that expired applied to direct electricity imports.
The U.S. embassy statement asserted that electricity imports from Iran were only 4 percent of electricity consumption in Iraq
But a spokesperson for Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity, Ahmad Moussa, said that should gas imports also be forbidden it "would cause Iraq to lose more than 30 percent of its electricity energy” and that the government is looking for alternatives.
Already, Moussa said, Iranian gas had stopped supplying power plants in Baghdad and the central Euphrates region for the past two months, and the supply to southern power plants had been unstable.
