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Iraqi MP: Kurdistan Government oil law
didn't help
7.9.2007
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September
7, 2007
BAGHDAD - A top Iraqi parliamentarian said
the Iraqi Kurdistan approval of a regional oil law
set back the debate over a federal law.
Abdul-Hadi al-Hasani, deputy chair of the
Parliament's Energy Committee, said the deals the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed with oil
firms could be overturned by the federal government.
Iraq's federal oil law has been held up by disputes
over the extent of federal control over the oil
sector and what role the private sector would play.
The Kurds, in the relatively peaceful Kurdistan
region in the north, have been urging movement as
they try to capitalize on four plus years of
economic development. They have signed a handful of
oil deals with smaller, private firms, which raised
ire in Baghdad, sparking threats from the Oil
Ministry they wouldn't be honored.
Last month the KRG grew weary of waiting for Baghdad
and approved its own version of a regional oil law,
saying it would be in line with a version of the
federal law the KRG agreed to in February.
"It did not help as much as hindrance," Hasani said
on the sidelines of the Iraq Oil, Gas, Petrochemical
and Electricity Summit organized by the London-based
Iraq Development Program. "We need one constitution,
one law over everybody. It could wait and then we
could see and then they could adopt the law which
everybody had agreed on."
Hasani claims the federal government has the right
to void the KRG contracts, though that would likely
make matters worse in terms of the investment scene
in Iraq.
Sami al-Askari, parliamentarian and top adviser to
the prime minister, said a federal oil and gas
council that the law forms would decide whether to
scrap the KRG deals.
Both parliamentarians said the private firms that
signed deals with the KRG should not be blocked from
winning contracts for the rest of Iraq.
UPI
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