{"id":75387,"date":"2026-04-20T21:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T21:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/75387\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T21:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T21:42:14","slug":"iraq-and-syria-reopen-a-long-shuttered-border-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/75387\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq and Syria reopen a long-shuttered border crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BAGHDAD (AP) \u2014 A key border crossing between Iraq and Syria reopened on Monday for the first time in more than a decade, with officials highlighting its potential for trade and oil exports. Syria touted the crossing as a safe overland route for oil exports and an alternative to the <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/strait-of-hormuz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Strait of Hormuz<\/a> at the focus of the <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/iran\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iran war<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The crossing \u2014 known as Rabia in Iraq and Yarubiyah in Syria \u2014 was closed after the Syrian civil war began in 2011. Then in 2014, militants from the Islamic State group seized the area. Iraqi Kurdish forces later retook it.<\/p>\n<p>Syria\u2019s state-run SANA news agency said that Syrian and Iraqi officials at the crossing discussed how to improve coordination and ease transit and trade \u201cin line with shared interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nadia al-Jubouri, a member of Iraq\u2019s provincial council of Nineveh, said at the ceremony that the reopening will allow for \u201ctrade exchange and oil transportation toward this great gate.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Still, transporting oil over land is far inferior \u2014 in capacity \u2014 to pipelines and oil tankers at sea.<\/p>\n<p>Iraq relies heavily on oil revenues for roughly 90% of its budget, and most of its oil is exported through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf and a critical chokepoint through which 20% of the world\u2019s oil normally flows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAGHDAD (AP) \u2014 A key border crossing between Iraq and Syria reopened on Monday for the first time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[719,2371,328,777,197,1304,196,94,1596,598,1598,768,27500,2222,95,1595,9114,200,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-75387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iraq","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-2024-2026-mideast-wars","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-energy-industry","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-international-trade","14":"tag-iran-war","15":"tag-iraq","16":"tag-iraq-government","17":"tag-islam","18":"tag-islamic-state-group","19":"tag-military-and-defense","20":"tag-nadia-al-jubouri","21":"tag-oil-and-gas-industry","22":"tag-syria","23":"tag-syria-government","24":"tag-tariffs-and-global-trade","25":"tag-war-and-unrest","26":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116439216432003280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}