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Baghdad Queries Validity of Kurds' Oil
Deals
25.9.2006 |
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BAGHDAD, Iraq ,--
Iraq's oil minister on Sunday disputed the validity
of deals signed between the Kurdistan Regional
Government and international oil companies,
reportedly saying that the central government was
not bound by the investment
contracts.
The comments represent a continuation of an ongoing
dispute between the autonomous Kurdish region in the
north of the country and the central government over
the control of oil resources.
Hussein al-Shahristani, the oil minister, was quoted
by the state-run al-Sabaah newspaper as saying: "The
ministry isn't committed to oil investment contracts
signed in the past...by officials of the government
of the Kurdistan region which were announced as
contracts for investment and the development of oil
fields."
The Kurds have signed production-sharing agreements
in the past year allowing several international
companies, including Norwegian and Turkish groups,
to begin drilling in the north, and the KRG's oil
minister Ashti Hawrami said last week that more
contracts will be signed in October.
Baghdad, however, has consistently insisted that
only the federal government has the right to make
such deals.
Both sides say they are discussing the issue as part
of negotiations over a federal hydrocarbons law, to
be passed either by the end of this year or at the
beginning of the next.
ft com
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