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Iraq democracy must come before oil:
Chalabi
3.2.2006
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VIENNA (Reuters)
- Democracy in Iraq may come at the expense of a
rapid recovery in the country's exports that have
fallen to pre-war levels, the country's deputy prime
minister Ahmad Chalabi said on Wednesday.
"Iraqi people are just emerging from decades of
dictatorship. Oil belongs to the people not to the
government," Chalabi told Reuters in an interview.
Despite decades of sanctions and wars, Baghdad under
former president Saddam Hussein managed to ship
around 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil to
world markets, compared with just over one million
bpd now.
But those exports came at a huge price, Chalabi
said.
"Did you look at the cost of the process? ... Those
people who suffered and got killed and had their
relatives in mass graves? They have been cut off
from the process," he told Reuters, speaking the day
after an OPEC meeting here.
"It's worth waiting for the political process to
take its course.... People see confusion and ....
chaos, but people are learning the limits of
democracy, the limits of freedom."
He said he was concerned the world's focus on Iraq's
struggle to achieve democracy and a new legal
framework would deter big oil companies from
investing there.
"Big companies with huge profits don't see any
reason to risk working in Iraq, but there are others
who will come," he said.
The first to strike up a post-war deal was Norwegian
independent DNO, which last June reached agreement
with Kurds in northern Iraq to explore for oil.
But Chalabi, who heads the energy council and state
contracts committee, said the oil would remain in
the ground until DNO had the approval of Baghdad.
"Negotiations have not started yet.... They are
seeking negotiations. They may have some deal with
the Kurds but they need to have a deal with Baghdad
to explore," he said.
"We need a law before we can get to exploration and
production."
Chalabi gave no timeframe for when that could
happen, but he said the downstream oil sector,
including petrol stations and refineries, should
open this year.
Reuters
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