TEHRAN, Jul. 17 (MNA) – Iranian Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian said that cutting electricity export to Iraq is based on a bilateral agreement which says that the priority is fulfilling domestic demands.

He made the remarks on Tuesday on the sideline of signing an MoU with the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.

Every international contract in the domain of energy has special conditions, and one of which is that if the exporter is in dire need of energy, it can cut down on the export to meet its own domestic demands, he added.

He went on to say that he has been in touch with his Iraqi counterpart in the past few days and Iraq’s officials are aware of Iran’s shortage for electricity export.

Ardakanian admitted that Iran has cut all its electricity exports, including exports to Iraq, to meet the high domestic demand for energy.

He also mentioned that Iraq has some $1 billion unpaid electricity bill to Iran.

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