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Kurdish lawmaker slams Iraqi threats to
stop oil exports to South Korea
30.12.2007
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December
30, 2007
Baghdad, -- A prominent member in the
Kurdistan Coalition (KC) criticized the Iraqi oil
ministry's
threats to stop
oil exports to South Korea for signing oil contracts
with the government Iraqi Kurdistan region. "I
believe these statements would complicate matters
now that the negotiations between the central
government and the Iraqi Kurdistan government were
still going on," Mahmoud Othman said in statements.
Othman, whose KC is the second largest bloc in the
Iraqi parliament with 55 out of a total 275 seats,
called on the oil ministry to "give a chance for
political dialogue to take its course."
He also urged for recourse to Iraq's supreme court
to settle this problem.
The Iraqi oil ministry is rejecting Iraqi Kurdistan
region government's unilateral signing of oil
contracts with foreign companies.
"Even if we presumed that the oil ministry's
procedures were constitutional, they should not be
carried out in such a speed," Othman said. |
Dr
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish legislator, member of the
Kurdistan National Democratic Union |
He declined to consider as "failure" the
negotiations the Iraqi Kurdistan government head had
with the Iraqi prime minister.
"There would be other rounds of negotiations to be
held to reach solutions for pending issues," he
said.
Nechirvan Barzani, the Prime Minister of the Iraqi
Kurdistan region, had talks with the central
government in Baghdad in mid-December 2007 to
discuss outstanding issues, including oil contracts,www.ekurd.net
but reached no concrete
results.
Aasim Jihad, the official spokesman for the oil
ministry, threatened on Wednesday to stop exporting
Iraqi crude oil exports to South Korea if Seoul
ratified an agreement concluded with the regional
government of Iraq's Kurdistan.
The government of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan signed
a contract with a global oil consortium led by South
Korea's national oil corporation KNOC, by virtue of
which the latter received a concession to prospect
for oil in northern Iraq.
According to KNOC sources, South Korea imported 42
million barrels of oil from Iraq in November 2007,
three times the amount it imported from Iraq in a
whole year in 2006.
Iraq is South Korea's largest oil supplier.
On December 26, The State-run Korea National Oil
Corp KNOC said it
would not abandon an
exploration project in Iraqi Kurdistan
despite
threats by the central Iraqi
government to cut off oil supplies to South Korea.
The corporation is part of a South Korean consortium
which last month
signed a deal
with the Kurdistan government to explore the Bazian
field,www.ekurd.net
which is estimated to
hold 500 million barrels of crude oil.
The government of Iraqi Kurdistan had signed 15
contracts to take part in oil production with 20
foreign companies despite the central government's
objection and ahead of the Iraqi parliament's final
endorsement on the new oil draft law.
VOI
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