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Iraqi central and Kurdistan governments to
resume oil talks
31.5.2008
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May
31, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region "Iraq", —
The Iraqi central and Kurdistan regional governments
will resume negotiations over the oil law and key
issues in early June.
Other topics include the disputed territories in the
north.
Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of the Kurdistan
Regional Government's Department of Foreign
Relations, told UPI "there is better understanding"
after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched the
incursion into Basra and the Kurdish leadership
backed him.
"It created a positive atmosphere in Baghdad," he
said.
Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG Prime Minister
Nechirvan Barzani and Maliki will meet, as will
their respective delegations, including KRG Natural
Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami and Iraqi Oil
Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.
The two energy ministers have butted heads over the
KRG's signing its own exploration and production
deals with foreign companies and a dispute as to
what the oil law should look like.
"The KRG is determined to go ahead and contribute
positively in order to have a hydrocarbon law,www.ekurd.net
based on our belief that
the private sector and foreign investment can be a
good impetus and good incentive to enhance the
economy," Bakir said. "We believe that our approach,
which is a free market oriented, market economy
approach, would help Iraq at this stage."
Many outside the semiautonomous Kurdish region favor
to some extent the continuation of a more
centralized and nationalized oil sector.
Bakir said the two prime ministers agreed that the
February 2007 draft of the oil law would be under
negotiation, and that all of the oil-related laws
and issues would be sent to Parliament as a package.
These are the hydrocarbons law, the revenue sharing
law, the laws re-establishing the Iraq National Oil
Co. and reorganizing the Ministry of Oil, and a list
of oil fields and exploration blocks that determine
whether they are controlled by the central or local
governments.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
UPI
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