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Kurdistan regional government says it's
not seen Iraq oil law
4.7.2007
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July
4, 2007
BAGHDAD, July 4,-- The local government in
Iraq's northern autonomous region of Kurdistan said
it had yet to see a draft hydrocarbon law approved
by the cabinet in Baghdad, possibly complicating
passage of the landmark legislation.
Parliament was expected to start debating the law on
Wednesday, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
told a news conference on Tuesday, describing the
bill as the "most important" law in Iraq.
Washington has pushed Iraq for months to speed up
passage of the law and other pieces of legislation,
which are seen as vital to curbing sectarian
violence and healing deep divisions between majority
Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.
But the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a key
party to the negotiations, said it had neither seen
nor approved the draft.
"We hope the cabinet is not approving a text with
which the KRG disagrees because this would violate
the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan region,"
the KRG said in a statement obtained on Wednesday.
Iraq's cabinet originally approved the draft in
February but faced stiff opposition from the
regional government in largely autonomous Kurdistan,
which felt it was getting a raw deal.
The law decides who controls the world's
third-largest oil reserves, aims to provide a legal
framework for attracting foreign investment and sets
up a new state oil company to oversee the industry.
The final draft has not been made public.
The Kurds had previously said some of the law's
annexes were unconstitutional because they wrested
oilfields from regional governments and placed them
under the new state oil firm.
Most reserves are in the Kurdish north and Shi'ite
south, underscoring the need for equitable
distribution to ensure Sunni Arab provinces in
central Iraq get a fair share of revenue.
A companion law that covers revenue sharing would be
approved by the cabinet this week and submitted to
parliament next week, Iraqi officials have said.
The Kurds approved the revenue-sharing component in
June, agreeing to take 17 percent of all oil
revenue.
Thamir Ghadhban, an energy adviser to Maliki, said
on Tuesday that a new Federal Oil and Gas Council
would sort out the disputed annexes after parliament
approved the law.
Reuters
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