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Iraq Shiites turn on Kurdish allies over
oil spat
5.12.2007
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December
5, 2007
BAGHDAD,-- Iraq's Shiites have turned on
their Kurdish allies over the stormy issue of oil
contracts with foreign companies, joining a furious
Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani in declaring them
invalid.
"These contracts will be suspended until the oil and
gas law is passed," said Abbas al-Bayati, member of
parliament for the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC),
one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite factions.
"When companies or countries sign these contracts,
they have to behave according to the law of the
country," Bayati added.
The autonomous Kurdistan regional government in
'northern Iraq' has signed 15 exploration and export
contracts with 20 international companies since it
passed its own oil law in August, infuriating the
Baghdad government.
Shahristani has angrily denounced the Kurdish
authorities for signing the contracts before the
national parliament approves a new oil and gas law,
declaring them "illegal" and "null and void."
The Kurdish authorities have hit back sharply,
telling the minister he is exceeding his authority
and that he should mind his own business.
"His statements will not affect our contracts with
foreign companies," Kurdistan prime minister
Nechirvan Barzani said last week. "The (regional)
government will continue with the contracts and they
will be implemented."
The heated row comes despite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's
wooing of Kurdish parties in an attempt to salvage
his embattled government, which has been hit by
walkouts by Sunnis and radical Shiite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr's political bloc.
In August, Maliki brokered a new political alliance
between his Dawa party and Vice President Adel Abdel
Mahdi's SIIC,www.ekurd.net
President Jalal
Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and
Kurdistan regional president Massoud Barzani's
Kurdistan Democratic Party in a bid to shore up his
government.
Despite generally good relations within the new
coalition, SIIC politicians this week were quick to
round on the Kurdish authorities.
"These contracts are illegal, and must pass through
the central government to be approved in accordance
with the Iraqi constitution," said Zuhair al-Hakim,
a SIIC official in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
"The origin of this dispute is that the Kurdistan
Regional Government approved its own oil and gas law
before the national law has been passed."
The Sadr movement too came out against the Kurdish
deals.
"We believe the central government should be in
charge of such agreements," said Liwa Sumaysim, head
of the political bureau of the Sadr movement, also
based in Najaf.
"We reject the autocratic way in which these
contracts were signed and we ask the government to
continue to stand against it too," Sumaysim added.
Another Shiite party, Al-Fadhila, was less strident.
"It would be better if the riches were in the hands
of the central government as the only party that can
guarantee national unity," said Nadim al-Jabiri, Al-Fadhila's
political advisor.
Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman said the dispute is
complex and should be put to the country's
constitutional court.
"It's a complex issue.www.ekurd.net
The Kurdistan Regional
Government says that the contracts they signed are
valid, while the central government says they are
not," said Othman.
"I think it is best that these contracts are
submitted to the constitutional tribunal which will
decide if they are valid or not," he said.
Iraq's oil and gas bill is stalled in the national
parliament amid bitter differences between rival
factions.
When approved, the new law will open up Iraq's long
state-dominated oil and gas sector to foreign
investment and will stipulate that receipts be
shared equally between Iraq's 18 provinces.
AFP
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