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Kurdistan - Iraq: Troubled Oil Begins to
Surface
24.10.2006
By Mohammed A. Salih |
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Erbil, Kurdistan
Region (Iraq), October 24 ,-- Through a steadily
worsening security situation and deepening political
divisions, a dispute is now erupting between Kurdish
leaders and the Baghdad regime over access to oil
resources.
Kurdish authorities and the federal government in
Baghdad have exchanged sharply-worded statements
recently in their rival claims for control over
northern oilfields. The row is expected to intensify
after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in
charge of the three northern provinces Erbil,
Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk presents an oil bill to the
regional parliament.
This would then be a basis of claims from the
federal government, and an assertion of rights over
oil in the north.
In an attempt to calm this growing confrontation
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged
Kurdish leaders on her last visit to Kurdistan to
make concessions to Baghdad on distribution of oil
revenues.
Kurdish leaders agreed to share an unspecified
portion of their revenues with Baghdad, but they say
they will not hand over control of oil wells to the
Iraqi oil ministry.
"We have not made any concessions and the KRG has
constitutionally the right to exploit the oil wealth
in areas under its control," Dler Shaways, head of
the economic and financial committee of the
Kurdistan Parliament in Erbil told IPS. "It is part
of the characteristics of federal systems that
regions can govern themselves and control their
revenues."
Accusing federal authorities of adopting "a
colonialist approach in dealing with Kurdistan,"
Shaways said "the regimes in Baghdad have so far
used our oil wealth to buy bombs and destroy the
country with it."
Disputes emerged first in December last year when
the KRG officially declared the discovery of oil in
the Kurdistan town of Zakho by a small Norwegian
firm.
Such oil explorations in the north have led Iraq's
Shia Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani to declare
that his ministry "isn't committed to oil investment
contracts signed in the past...by officials of the
government of the Kurdistan region."
The Kurdish government in turn held out options
other than co-existence with the federal government
if it refused to recognise its authority over oil
wealth in the north.
Over the course of the past three years, since the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Kurdish government
has signed three production sharing deals. These are
with the Turkish companies Petoil in April 2003 and
Genel Enerji in January 2004, and recently the
Canadian company Western Oil Sands.
Much of the disagreement over oil management and
revenue distribution has emanated from ambiguities
in the text of the national constitution.
The constitution gives ownership of oil and gas
resources to Iraqi people, but stipulates that "the
federal government, with the producing governorates
and regional governments, shall undertake the
management of oil and gas extracted from present
fields."
The phrase "present fields" has been interpreted by
Kurdish officials as those which are producing oil
already, not new fields.
Many see the oil dispute is a major battle of
self-assertion for Kurdish and Iraqi governments.
Baghdad fears that Kurds' control of their oil
wealth will give them powers challenging the central
government's domain of influence.
Sunni Arabs, who constitute the core of insurgency
against the U.S. and Iraqi government, are afraid
that the Kurdish example would inspire Shias to
follow a similar path in their southern oil-rich
regions, and leave their oil -barren central region
impoverished.
As squabbling over oil increases, what many Iraqis
want is only an end to the fuel shortage they have
been facing for years.
Abdullah Razwan, 32, a government employee from
Arbil, is not interested in the dispute. Stopping
every now and then to wipe the sweat off his face as
he rolled an empty barrel to a kerosene tanker, he
said the oil controversy is all politics.
"When I cannot get a barrel of oil easily without
paying the whole of my monthly salary for it, what
difference can it make in my life who controls the
oil."
IPS
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