Economy
Iraq working to expand oil exports via Türkiye, Syria, Jordan: PM
Iraq is working to expand oil exports through Türkiye’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan and develop export routes via Syria’s Baniyas and Jordan’s Aqaba ports, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said Friday.
Crude oil sales account for nearly 90% of Iraq’s revenue, but its exports have been hurt by the outbreak of the Middle East war between Iran and the United States, which choked off the Strait of Hormuz.
Iraq, an OPEC founding member, was forced to halt production in most of its oil fields during the war as reservoirs filled up.
Al-Zaidi said he wants to increase the country’s oil production to as much as 10 million barrels a day within six years.
“We are working to increase Iraq’s share within the OPEC+ framework, and we aim to reach a production of 9 to 10 million barrels per day in six years,” he told a panel in Baghdad.
Iraq recently asked OPEC to increase its production quota because of the war’s impact.
Before the conflict began, Iraq produced around four million barrels per day, and exported an average of 105 million barrels per month, mostly from its Basra oil terminal via Hormuz.
Due to the waterway disruption, it began exporting crude using tanker trucks through Syria, as well as through a pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz poses a major challenge,” said al-Zaidi.
He said Baghdad was working to increase oil exports via Ceyhan, as well as Baniyas in Syria and Aqaba in Jordan.
After a drop following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iraqi oil exports recovered slightly to around 49 million barrels in July, with more than 30 million of them passing through the strait.
In the first two weeks of August, Iraq exported an average of two million barrels per day – its highest level since the start of the Middle East war.
While Baghdad relies heavily on foreign currency earnings from oil sales, authorities are seeking to diversify the country’s economy.
National flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) aims to increase flight frequencies to the Asia-Pacific region by up to 20% in the coming years, a top executive said Friday.
The aim is to establish an alternative second corridor between Asia, Australia and Europe by adding second and third flights to key cities, Murat Şeker, board chair at Turkish Airlines, told Nikkei Asia.
THY operates an extensive network across 133 countries and 358 destinations.
Şeker said the carrier has added 10 flights to reach 42 weekly services this year as part of efforts to accelerate its expansion in China, with existing traffic rights allowing growth to 49 flights.
Flights to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have been increased earlier than planned, while plans are underway to launch flights to Chengdu in November and Urumqi.
Turkish Airlines redirected wide-body capacity to high-demand markets like Japan, China, Australia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam in the wake of tensions in the Middle East, adding 58 weekly flights and 61 cargo flights.
The move helped drive up the carrier’s second-quarter revenue by 20.5% year-over-year to $7.2 billion, as its passenger revenue jumped 15% and cargo revenue surged 58%.
THY’s total revenue rose 20.8% to $13.1 billion in the first half of the year despite increases in jet fuel prices due to tensions in the Middle East, which added $1.3 billion in costs, with total conflict-related spending reaching around $2.1 billion.
The company expanded its customer base by around 5% with new passengers while growing its market share by about one percentage point in the second quarter.
At the same time, Asian routes saw their revenue share rise by five percentage points to 32%, surpassing Europe’s 27%. Asia’s share of THY’s total passenger traffic climbed from 10% to 12%.
Passenger traffic between Africa and Asia jumped 70%, while traffic between Eastern Europe and Asia increased 40% due to shorter transit via Russian airspace.
Turkish Airlines aims to increase its current 25 weekly flights to Japan via newly acquired traffic rights in Singapore and Vietnam, while Japanese investors cover about 20% of its aircraft leasing needs, having financed over 100 aircraft worth around $9 billion in the past two decades.
The airline also plans to start nonstop flights to Sydney and Melbourne in 2028, driven by expected support from revenue generated by long-haul Premium Economy cabins, according to Nikkei Asia.
The carrier is also seeking global joint ventures with potential stakes of 30%-50% across Asian and South American operations and cargo, as well as in aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services.
Türkiye has produced 6.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Black Sea since production began in 2023, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Friday.
Bayraktar’s remarks came as Türkiye marked six years after announcing its largest-ever gas discovery in the Black Sea and as it prepares to significantly increase production capacity over the next two years to reduce its reliance on imported energy.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the discovery of 320 billion cubic meters of gas at the Tuna-1 well on Aug. 21, 2020. The estimate was later revised upward by 85 billion cubic meters to 405 billion cubic meters.
Further discoveries at Amasra-1 in 2021, Çaycuma-1 in 2022 and Göktepe-3 in 2025 brought Türkiye’s total estimated Black Sea gas reserves to 785 billion cubic meters.
The Sakarya Gas Field began delivering gas to Türkiye’s network after production infrastructure was completed.
Gas reached the shore in April 2023, and locally produced gas was fed into the national transmission network in late August the same year, after processing at a facility at a port in northern Zonguldak province.
Since production began, 12 wells have been brought into operation and the field has produced 6.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
As of May this year, Sakarya accounted for 92% of Türkiye’s total domestic gas production.
Current production stands at around 9.5 million cubic meters per day, enough to meet the natural gas needs of approximately 4 million households, Bayraktar said in a statement.
He said the Black Sea discoveries had opened a new phase in Türkiye’s drive for greater energy independence.
“Since 2023, we have produced a total of 6.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas, bringing the Black Sea’s resources into our country’s energy supply,” Bayraktar said.
“We discovered it six years ago; we’re producing it today; and tomorrow we’ll make even more of it available to our people.”
Production target to more than double
Türkiye is now preparing to increase output sharply through new phases of the Sakarya field development project.
The Osman Gazi floating production platform, part of Phase 2, is scheduled to begin operations in the fourth quarter of this year. Its deployment is expected to raise daily production to 20 million cubic meters.
The next major increase is planned for 2028, when a second floating production facility is expected to enter service under Phase 3.
Daily production from the Sakarya field is then targeted to reach 45 million cubic meters, with the overall project expected to eventually include 54 production wells.
From discovery to production
The development of the Sakarya field has required extensive offshore and onshore infrastructure.
A subsea production facility was established approximately 170 kilometers (105.63 miles) north of Filyos port at a water depth of 2,200 meters (7,217.85 feet).
That was followed by a 170-kilometer pipeline that was built to connect the offshore facility with the Filyos Natural Gas Processing Facility.
The progression from discovery to commercial production has allowed Türkiye to begin converting its large offshore resource base into actual domestic supply.
Türkiye expands offshore drilling fleet
Türkiye is also continuing exploration and production activities with its expanding deep-water drilling fleet.
The Abdülhamid Han, Fatih, Kanuni, Yavuz and Yıldırım drilling vessels are currently operating in the Black Sea. Abdülhamid Han and Fatih are carrying out drilling activities, while Kanuni, Yavuz and Yıldırım are involved in well-completion operations.
The Çağrı Bey drilling vessel is meanwhile conducting hydrocarbon exploration activities off Somalia.
Türkiye’s solar power generation reached a record high in July, according to official data, as renewable energy sources increasingly meet the country’s electricity demand.
Solar generation rose 10.2% from the previous month to 5.4 terawatt-hours (TWh), data compiled from the Energy Exchange Istanbul (EPIAŞ) showed. That surpassed the previous record of 4.9 TWh, set in June.
Solar power accounted for 15.6% of Türkiye’s total electricity generation in July, the highest share recorded for the month to date. Solar generation also remained ahead of natural gas and domestic coal-fired power plants for the third consecutive month.
Wind power accounted for 12% of electricity generation, bringing the combined share of solar and wind to 27.6%.
Renewables’ share rises to 58%
Hydropower generation also reached a record for July, rising 60% year-over-year to 9 TWh. Hydropower accounted for 26.3% of total electricity generation.
Combined generation from solar, wind, hydropower and other renewable sources accounted for 58% of Türkiye’s electricity output, up from 43% in July last year.
Natural gas-fired power generation moved in the opposite direction. Its share fell to 10% in July from around 25% a year earlier, marking the lowest level recorded for any July in the past 26 years.
The share of imported coal-fired generation rose to 19% after remaining relatively low for three months, returning to around its average level. Domestic coal accounted for 12.5%, broadly in line with its 2026 average.
Renewables meet higher summer demand
Çağlar Çeliköz, an energy analyst at international energy think tank Ember, said Türkiye continued to set new records for solar generation during the summer of 2026.
He noted that electricity demand typically rises during hot weather because of increased cooling and air conditioning use, but renewable sources played a growing role in meeting that additional demand.
Electricity consumption reached 34.4 TWh in July, approaching the 35.2 TWh recorded in the same month last year, with air conditioning use contributing to demand.
Despite the higher demand, Çeliköz referred to the fact that gas’s share of generation fell to its lowest July level in 26 years. He said the increase in hydropower generation was an important factor behind the 58% share of renewables.
However, he cautioned that the unusually strong renewable performance should not be viewed solely as a structural shift in generation.
Hydropower accounted for 26 percentage points of the 58% renewable share, partly reflecting abundant rainfall, while Türkiye remains exposed to the effects of longer-term drought.
Solar, wind capacity needed to offset hydropower risks
Çeliköz said Türkiye needs to expand its solar and wind capacity to offset potential declines in hydropower generation.
He particularly highlighted rooftop solar, battery-backed renewable plants and hybrid power plants as areas that could help strengthen the country’s renewable generation capacity.
Increasing renewable capacity would also help Türkiye reduce its dependence on imported energy and strengthen electricity supply security, Çeliköz said.
The number of foreign visitors arriving in Türkiye dropped slightly in July, data from the Culture and Tourism Ministry showed Friday.
Foreign arrivals totaled 7.1 million last month, down 0.3% from a year earlier, according to the data.
From January through July, the number of foreign visitors reached 27.86 million, a 2.29% decline from the same period in 2025, the ministry said.
Russia was Türkiye’s largest source of foreign visitors in July, with just over 1 million arrivals. Germany ranked second, followed by the United Kingdom, according to the ministry data.
Türkiye welcomed a record 52.78 million foreign tourists in 2025, while combined with Turkish citizens living abroad, the count rose to a new all-time high of 63.94 million.
Tourism revenues increased 6.8% to $65.23 billion, surpassing the government’s Medium-Term Program (OVP) target of $64 billion.
For 2026, the government targeted $68 billion, before the outbreak of the Iran war. The income in the first half of the year edged down 0.1% year-over-year to $25.75 billion.
Tourism is a vital industry that Türkiye relies on to help flip its chronic current account deficit to a surplus.
The sector contributes about 10% to Türkiye’s gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for about 5% of total employment.
Sinan Can Demir wanted to spend the last week of July burnishing his resume. Instead, he engaged in a battle of wits with an artificial intelligence agent unleashed by a British government lab.
It started after Demir, a computer science student at the University of Texas at Dallas, stumbled across an attempt to sabotage a piece of open-source software on the code-sharing site GitHub. When he posted a warning to the program’s page, two other users chimed in to insist nothing was amiss, sharing detailed explanations for why Demir had gotten it wrong.
Demir stood his ground and the sabotage attempt was thwarted. The 24-year-old native of Türkiye figured he had caught a wily hacker red-handed. So he said he was shocked when Britain’s AI Security Institute (AISI) got in touch to tell him that he had actually been tangling with an autonomous artificial intelligence agent that had run amok.
“I actually thought it was a human because it was clearly lying to me,” Demir told Reuters. “I didn’t think that an AI could be capable of lying to real developers.”
The AISI first revealed the interaction, opens new tab between Demir and the AI agent in a truncated and redacted form on August 4, when it said that safety testing meant to gauge the risk posed by various models had gone awry. Demir’s identity and the details of his interaction with the AI agent, which Reuters corroborated through archived GitHub messages and contemporaneous emails, are reported here for the first time.
Five cybersecurity and AI safety experts said Demir’s story was particularly disturbing because the kind of hack he discovered, called a supply-chain attack, can have far-reaching consequences. They also said the AI agent’s attempt to publicly discredit Demir by creating a multi-person conversation around him showed that AI models were able to mount sophisticated efforts to trick and cajole humans.
“This crossed the line from autonomous hacking to interactive deception,” said Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Security expert Maxie Reynolds said she was struck by how strategic the AI had been in trying to trick the student.
“This is the future of social-engineering attacks,” she said.
The AISI, a research organization within the British government, referred Reuters to its report, which identified the rogue agent as having been powered by Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model. AISI declined further comment.
Anthropic referred to a post on X, in which it noted that the testing had occurred “under ‘deliberately permissive conditions’ that are not representative of any of our production models” but declined further comment.
GitHub said in an email that the fake personas identified by Reuters were suspended in line with its policies on deceptive behavior and hacking.
Job hunt led to malware discovery
Demir, a soft-spoken junior from the Turkish city of Konya, said he had been frustrated after being turned down for more than 20 internships over the summer. So he turned to GitHub to build up his coding portfolio.
The Microsoft-owned site is a hub for open-source software, so-called because its source code is freely downloadable and auditable by anyone. Developers use GitHub to comment on one another’s projects, flag bugs, suggest changes – known as pull requests, or PRs – and work collaboratively on software updates.
Some in the technology industry see a coder’s GitHub activity as a proxy for a potential recruit’s productivity. So when Demir spotted a set of software projects that might need help, he figured he could pitch in while boosting his profile.
That’s when things got weird.
Demir discovered that a user named miraholt31 was trying to sneak a malicious update into one of the projects, a network scanning program called myNetwork. Demir took to the project’s message board to warn that the pull request was a trap.
“The PR contains a hidden malware dropper,” he said, according to the archived exchange.
The agent pushed back, falsely claiming – through its miraholt31 account – that the pull request was harmless. It also created a second account, masquerading as Lena Brandt, an engineer based in Germany, to agree that the update was clean and pressure myNetwork’s maintainer into accepting it.
Demir said that the counterarguments “made me second-guess whether I was wrongly accusing someone.” But after turning to Anthropic’s Claude chatbot to confirm his suspicions, he held firm. The creator of myNetwork eventually agreed with him, writing that they had rejected the update “for security reasons.”
Reuters was unable to reach the creator for comment.
Supply-chain attack
A supply-chain attack is when a piece of software is tampered with in the hope of compromising one or more of its users, and it is widely considered disturbing because, like poison dropped into a city reservoir, it can affect a potentially huge number of people downstream.
Many of the world’s most dramatic hacks were supply-chain attacks, including the NotPetya cyberattack that paralyzed institutions across Ukraine in 2017 and the SolarWinds-focused cyberespionage campaign that gave Russian spies sweeping access to U.S. government networks in 2020.
The consequences of such a compromise “can be extremely serious,” said Piergiorgio Ladisa, a security researcher who specializes in software supply-chain security. Ladisa noted there had been at least one previous attempt by hackers to trick an open-source maintainer into allowing malicious code into their projects.
“Autonomous agents could dramatically increase the scale at which such attempts can be conducted,” he said.
Demir said the experience left him more sympathetic to the idea that frontier labs needed to take a more cautious approach to the development of artificial intelligence.
“It can be dangerous,” he said. “They need to understand it better, rather than improving it further.”
The U.S. will impose “the toughest sanctions in history” on Iran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday, a focus on economic measures he suggested would lessen the need for new major military operations against Tehran.
His statement followed President Donald Trump’s threat a day earlier of “Economic Warfare” and warning of economic consequences against any country that provided “any type of lifeline to Iran.”
Oil prices rose to more than a three-week high on Thursday following those U.S. threats of financial penalties aimed at forcing an end to a nearly six-month-old war that has stranded millions of barrels of Middle Eastern oil.
“I’m not sure why oil has popped up on this,” Bessent told CNBC. “If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart,” he said, using a term referring to military force.
Iran calls U.S. sanctions ‘economic terrorism’
Thousands have been killed in the conflict, which drew in Gulf nations and shocked markets as Iran flexed its ability to curb shipping through the Strait of Hormuz – a waterway that carried about a fifth of all traded oil before February.
The U.S. and Iran have twice announced cease-fire deals, in April and June, aiming to restore the free flow of shipping through Hormuz on a path toward ending the conflict, but both quickly crumbled.
Before Bessent spoke, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it condemned U.S. economic and trade sanctions, calling them “economic terrorism” that would target ordinary Iranians and amount to crimes against humanity.
Bessent told CNBC he would share more details and “talk about exactly what we’re going to do” on Iran at a press conference Monday.
“It is a one-two punch. We have the blockade (on Iran), and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history,” he added, referring to a U.S. naval blockade imposed on Iran in April and paused for a month in mid-June.
“It is going to work in Iran and we are going to collapse this regime. It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision,” he said.
When asked if the United States could target China for doing business with Iran, Bessent said many conversations were best to have in private.
“Keep in mind that the Chinese get 50% (of their) energy from inside from the Gulf. So it would do them a big service to get with the program,” he said.
China buys more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil, according to 2025 data from analytics firm Kpler, but engaging in further economic warfare with China, a major exporter to the U.S. including vital rare-earth minerals, risks retaliation against Washington.
Iran has faced years of sanctions
In a social media message Wednesday, Trump promised “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” although details were scant.
Iran has weathered near-continuous, punishing economic sanctions for nearly 50 years, since the 1979 Revolution.
“ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences,” Trump wrote.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi called Trump’s comments an attempt to divert American public opinion from domestic financial problems, including record debt and rising interest rates.
He said Washington’s insistence on policies he described as failed would bring further failures and alienate Iranians.
“America’s economic terrorism threatens the global economy and the national sovereignty of countries around the world,” he said on X.
Trump has yet to achieve the objectives he set out at the start of the war: dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, curbing its ability to attack regional rivals and creating conditions for Iranians to overthrow their rulers.
Trump’s social media threats and announcements do not always get implemented as written. He did not say what specific steps the U.S. would take or name any country, though the warning would appear to extend to U.S. allies that have helped mediate peace talks.
Iran has separately been negotiating an agreement on managing the Strait of Hormuz with Oman and has said several times in recent weeks that an agreement was close.
Trump responded on Monday to those negotiations with a threat, warning he might bomb the Gulf state, a longstanding U.S. security partner, if it “gets in the way.”
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, speaking after meeting his Japanese counterpart, said on Thursday that lasting security in the strait required a permanent peace in the region and rejected further escalation.
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