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Kurdistan government responds to Iraqi Oil
Minister's threats to international oil companies
21.11.2007
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KRG responds to Dr Shahristani’s threats to
international oil companies
November 21, 2007
Official Statement by the
Kurdistan Regional Government.
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
Dr Hussein Shahristani, the Iraqi Oil Minister, has
issued threats against oil companies who have signed
contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government. He
warns that Iraq's oil will not be allowed to be
exported. |
Kurdistan Regional Government. |
Dr Shahristani has
failed to deliver any meaningful projects through
his Ministry year after year. He has not managed to
spend even a quarter of the annual federal budget
allocated to his Ministry, and is now trying also to
deter others from doing the right thing for the
country. It is amazing that a Minister in Baghdad
should continue to threaten international oil
companies (IOCs) with sanctions and punishment
because they have decided to invest in one of the
secure and safe parts of Iraq.
We thought that the era of threats against the Kurds
in Iraq was over. We thought that the era of
punishing the Kurdistan Region was not part of our
new and agreed political order. It is disappointing
to see that Dr Shahristani has chosen to side with
the anti-Kurdish elements from the Saddam era, and
to see that he holds such grudges against the
Kurdish people as if they belonged to another
country.
We are not deterred by Dr Shahristani’s views.
Experience shows that most international oil
companies (IOCs) now ignore his unhelpful
interventions. We know that the KRG is doing the
right thing by encouraging the IOCs to invest in
Kurdistan. The oil exploration contracts signed by
the KRG will create an additional one million
barrels of oil per day to enhance the much needed
revenues to all the peoples of Iraq in the near
future.
Dr Shahristani’s Ministry spent three years talking
about the Khor Mor gas project for power generation
without taking any real action. Earlier this year,
the KRG made its decision to plan and implement the
project through a service contract and by early 2008
we will be able to supply the power grid with much
needed electricity to be shared throughout the
country. If we had access to some of Dr
Shahristani’s annual budget we would have done much
more for the country by now.
Since we are an integrated part of Iraq with
constitutional rights and duties, we know that oil
exploration and production in one part of the
country should create revenue for the whole country.
When we are at the stage of exporting oil from the
Kurdistan Region, we will be exporting Iraq's oil
for the benefit of all Iraqis. We have agreed in the
approved Constitution of Iraq and the agreed draft
Revenue Sharing Law that the country's wealth and
resources will be shared as demanded by the
Constitution which was approved by an overwhelming
majority of the country's voters. www.ekurd.net
Our contracts with the IOCs are both constitutional
and legal within the framework of the Kurdistan Oil
and Gas Law, the only existing framework regulating
our oil industry in the post-Saddam era.
People who are threatening to use the Saddam-era
laws will not only go against the country’s
principal agreement between crucial political
forces, but they are directly endangering the
country’s Constitution in which federalism and
revenue-sharing are the only elements keeping the
country together. During Saddam's era nothing in the
direction of federalism and revenue sharing ever
existed.
Dr Shahristani keeps saying that Iraqi law does not
allow this or that. People around the world wonder
which law he is talking about because they know that
since most of Saddam’s laws contradict the new
Constitution, they are now null and void.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime,
representatives of the Kurdistan Region and its
government have been both imaginative and
forward-looking in solving many issues, ranging from
constitutional to political mediation between
different parties in Iraq.
We would like to remind Dr Shahristani that we
neither expect nor accept threats, sanctions and
punishments from partners in our coalition
government in Baghdad. The Kurdistan Alliance List
is a partner in Iraq, not a rogue region to be
threatened or punished for exercising its
constitutional rights and power and for its
willingness to contribute to the country's security,
stability and revenue.
Once again our message to the IOCs and potential
investors is that the KRG is mandated by the
Constitution and has managed to create an
investment-friendly business environment. Empty
threats and talk of blackmail will not last. We are
sure that eventually common sense will prevail in
dealing with these matters.
krg org
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