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Kurdistan PM Nechirvan Barzani talks with
Baghdad positive
13.4.2008
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April 13, 2008
BAGHDAD, Iraq, -- A Kurdish spokesman on
Sunday described as “positive” the on-going
negotiations between Kurdistan government chief and
Iraqi Prime Minister over oil contracts concluded by
the Kurds with international companies to invest in
the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and the
possible incorporation of the Peshmerga (Local
Kurdistani Fighters) into the Iraqi army.
“Over two meetings on Saturday, the talks between
Kurdistan Premier Nechirvan Barzani and Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki were good and positive,”
Feriyad Rawandozi told VOI.
The spokesman for the Parliamentary Kurdish bloc
(Kurdistan Alliance) added “in the first meeting the
two sides dealt with the oil contracts concluded by
the region government with international companies
to invest there,www.ekurd.net
the Oil and Gas draft
law, the incorporation of the Peshmerga into the
Iraqi army, the implementation of article 140 over
Kirkuk and the relation between the central and
regional governments.” |
Nechirvan Barzani, Prime
Minister of
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) |
Rawandozi said that the second meeting was held
behind closed doors.
Baghdad so far has refused to recognize all the
contracts signed by the regional government with oil
international companies to invest in the region and
threatened to ban these companies from future deals
with the central oil ministry, while the Kurds
advocated that these contracts were “legal”
according to the Iraqi Federal Constitution.
Maliki’s government also opposes to pay the
190,000-member-Peshmerga Kurdish forces from the
Iraqi Defense Minister budget.
“Teams of experts from both sides will start today a
round of talks on these issues,” the Kurdish
spokesman explained.
On his part, Kurdistan Premier Barzani , who arrived
in Baghdad on Friday, expressed the region
government’s support to the moves taken by Prime
Minister Maliki to impose the rule of law and combat
“outlaws”, according to Rawandozi.
Since the last week of March, Iraqi security forces
engaged in fight with what the government termed
“gangs of criminals and outlaws” in the southern
Iraqi city of Basra where the Shiite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr’s Mahdi militia were active.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, VOI
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