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Oil-rich Kurdistan still under thumb of Iraq
ministers
21.3.2008
By
Andrew
McFadyen |
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March 21, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', --
from the moment we land at Erbil's plush new
airport, it looks and feels like we are in a
separate country. Kurdistan's red-white-and-green
tricolour flutters over the terminal building and
our passports are stamped with Kurdish visas.
The Kurdish regional government's website describes
it as "the other Iraq" and, here at least, the
ousting of Saddam has provided the foundation for a
startling economic boom.
Kurdistan's oil minister, Ashti Harami, told us
there are no limits to the success they can achieve:
"You could create a new Dubai in every city in Iraq.
We could be the financial centre of the Middle
East."
His comparison with Dubai
seems gloriously over-ambitious when hotels here
still have regular power cuts. Each evening, as we
filled up on hummus and flatbread, we would be
plunged into darkness.
However, development in this ancient city is
undeniably racing ahead. The frame of a giant
shopping mall is taking shape in Erbil's centre and
family apartments valued at more than L100,000 are
being built on the edge of town.
Jim Covert, the tanned American developer of a
suburban housing estate, said each of his 400 homes
was designed with a garage big enough to fit a
Hummer. He adds they are selling out fast.
Kurdistan's security is guaranteed by a ring of
military checkpoints which effectively seal it off
from the rest of Iraq. Although a suicide bomber
killed two people in Sulaimaniyah last week, the
region is an oasis of calm compared with the
violence further south.
We were able to eat in local restaurants, use hotel
taxis and film openly in the street for Channel 4
News - things which would be unthinkable in Baghdad,
where journalists have to hire armed guards for
protection against kidnappers.
So far, Kurdistan's economic boom is simply a
product of political stability and security,www.ekurd.net
but the country floats
on an ocean of oil. There is so much of it, we saw
natural seepages of the sticky black liquid bubbling
up from the ground like geysers in Iceland.
Last year, Kurdish ministers signed 15 contracts
with foreign companies, which they hope will produce
more than one million barrels of crude oil a day.
Ashti Harami said: "Exports will begin from this
region very soon."
Norwegian oil company DNO is one of those to secure
drilling rights and the first foreign firm to open a
new oil field in Iraq for decades. Magne Normann,
who is in charge of the operation, learned his trade
in Aberdeen.
DNO has spent L150m shipping a modern production
facility from Alabama in the United States and
building the infrastructure that will enable them to
pump crude oil directly into Iraq's main export
pipeline to Turkey.
With more than a glint of pride, Normann said: "We
were the first international oil company that had
the guts to go to northern Iraq. We didn't just talk
about it, we did it and we made a discovery on the
first exploration well we drilled."
But despite his optimism, there is a problem. Iraq's
central government regards the contracts that
Kurdistan has signed with foreign companies as
illegal and a political challenge to its authority.
Ministers in Baghdad refuse to recognise the
agreements made by the Kurdish regional government
and say the Kurds must wait until a new oil law is
agreed by parliament before exports can begin.
Tariq Shafiq, who helped draft the oil law, says
that if Kurdistan decides to go ahead on its own, it
will create damage beyond repair: "If they can do
this,www.ekurd.net
I think it means the
disintegration of the country and they better seek a
separate state."
Oil and gas contribute 90% of the Iraqi budget.
Kurdistan might not win international recognition or
a seat at the United Nations, but if the Kurds can
assert control over the natural resources within its
borders, they will be independent from Baghdad in
all but name.
At its heart, then, this is a political struggle
about what kind of country the new Iraq will be.
Baghdad aims to stop the Kurds from making
unilateral deals with foreign companies because of
the dangerous precedent it sets for the Shia
population in the south.
Worries about the birth of an autonomous Kurdistan
are shared by Iraq's neighbours. There are large and
restless Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Syria and
Iran, each with their own aspirations for
self-government.
Last month, Turkey sent 10,000 troops into Iraq in
pursuit of Kurdish rebels. Turkey's government
defended their eight-day incursion as an
anti-terrorist operation, but it was seen in
Kurdistan as a deliberate assault against their
fledgling state.
Turkish warplanes reportedly bombed Kurdish rebel
hideouts in northern Iraq yesterday, on the eve of
today's important Newroz festival.
Even oil cannot guarantee good neighbours and the
Kurds have an old saying that they have no friends
but the mountains'. For now, though, they seem to be
the only clear winners from the American invasion of
Iraq.
Andrew McFadyen is a producer for Channel 4 News
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
theherald co.uk
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