CAIRO, Mar 18 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's petroleum minister said talks between Egyptian and Jordanian officials on Wednesday adressed building gas and oil pipelines connecting Egypt, Jordan and Iraq.

Petroleum Minister Sherif Ismail said in a statement that the Egyptian-Jordanian vision on cooperation includes implementing projects to build "petroleum and gas pipelines to Iraq, through Jordan ... to make use of the locations of Egypt and Jordan ... and to exploit excess energies from Iraqi crude oil."

Ismail added that Iraq has huge potential to produce associated petroleum gas that can be used to create joint projects, using the "outstanding ties" between the three countries.

He added that a large amount of the infrastructure needed to set up the project is already available.  

The talks between representatives of Egyptian and Jordanian state and privately-owned companies led to the signing of an initial agreement for cooperation on natural gas between the two countries.  

The Egyptian-Jordanian talks come after an agreement was signed on Sunday between the Egyptian state's Egyptian General Authority for Petroleum and Kuwait Energy to develop an oil field in Basra, southern Iraq.