Turkey has begun importing 5 to 10 road tankers of crude from northern Iraq daily and the volume could rise to 100-200 tankers per day, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Friday.

Kurdistan region, which borders Turkey, is locked in a dispute with the central Iraqi government over oil exports and energy policy has become a sensitive topic.

A Kurdistan regional government source said earlier this week that it had sent a small amount of oil to Turkey by trucks in exchange for diesel, adding it needed the refined product to run power stations.

"Crude purchases from northern Iraq have begun with a volume of 5-10 road tankers. This may rise to 100-200 tankers a day," Yildiz told reporters at a ground-breaking ceremony for a power plant in western Turkey.

Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has said that if the central Iraqi government did not provide Kurdistan with its share of refined products, the region would be decided.

Iraq has cut supplies of products to Kurdistan to 16,826 barrels per day (bpd) from 32,116 bpd from April 25, far below its 140,000 bpd allocation.

Separately, Turkey and Kurdistan are also in talks for the direct sale of natural gas to Turkey.

But in a sign of moves to soothe ties between Ankara and Baghdad, the two governments have started technical work on shipping crude oil from Basra in southern Iraq via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey's Mediterranean coast.