Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein discussed a pipeline linking Iraq to the Red Sea in Amman on Wednesday with Jordan's Ayman Safadi and Egypt's Badr Abdelatty. The ministers talked about a line from Basra to Aqaba. [1] Talk is not steel.

Iraq and Jordan began planning Basra-Aqaba in 2013 and never finished it. [1] Washington has separately backed talk of reviving Kirkuk-Baniyas to Syria's Mediterranean coast. [2] Gulf states already lean on Yanbu and the East-West line to dodge Iranian control of Hormuz. [1]

A photograph in Amman does not move Kirkuk crude. It does not empty the 65-ship stranded cohort. Alternative corridors are the region's honest instinct. A 13-year unbuilt pipe is still unbuilt.

Until a right-of-way, a finance close, and a first weld exist, Wednesday's completed record is a meeting. Hormuz remains the tap Iraq actually has.

Saudi Arabia already leans on Yanbu and the East-West line to keep barrels off Hormuz. [1] Iraq wants the same instinct in steel. Amman can host the nouns. Basra still loads the old way.

A 13-year unbuilt pipe does not become a bypass because ministers sat down.

-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem