Iraq says it has agreed to allow its neighbor, Iran, to build a natural gas pipeline to Syria through Iraqi territory.
Iraq's government says Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani approved the project in principle at a meeting Wednesday with a visiting Iranian delegation in Baghdad.
The Iraqi oil ministry says both sides will form a committee to study the route the Iranian gas pipeline will take through Iraq to Syria and the Mediterranean Sea.
It says Iraqi and Iranian oil ministry officials also discussed the status of oil fields that straddle the Iraqi-Iranian border. The two countries have had disputes in the past about control of the oil fields.
Iranian troops occupied an inactive oil well on the Iraqi side of the border last December. Iraq's government protested the move and said the Iranians fully withdrew from Iraqi territory several weeks later.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
