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Iraqi Kurdish Smuggling To Iran
2.3.2012
By Joel Wing — ekurd.net |
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Kurdish smugglers - January 2012. Photo: Reuters
Iraqi Kurdish Alcohol smugglers - January 2012.
Photo: Reuters
Kurdish smugglers - January 2012. Photo: Reuters
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March
2, 2012
SULAIMANIYAH,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — For centuries there
has been smuggling all along the Iran-Iraq
border. In Kurdistan, small groups of smugglers
in Sulaimaniyah regularly cross back and forth
between the two countries.
These are very small operations involving
products prohibited in Iran like alcohol, but
also consumer goods, and even clothes. The
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is
unofficially involved in such operations,
illegally selling oil and refined products to
Iran since the 1990s.
This became a huge controversy in the summer of
2010 as reporters suddenly decided to go to
border crossing points in Kurdistan and found
hundreds of trucks lined up to bring Kurdish oil
to Iran. The media coverage however did not stop
these operations, as there are still reports
about it going on to this day.
On February 17, 2012 for example, Iraq’s Azzaman
paper quoted a member of the energy committee in
parliament who claimed that $20 million worth of
oil was being trucked into Iran each day from
Kurdistan. The legislator said this was mostly
the work of smuggling rings that operated in
both southern and northern Iraq, who had the
implicit support of local officials.
For the small operators, this is simply a way to
earn money as they often live in more rural
areas of the country where etching out a living
is sometimes rough. For the KRG, it is a way to
earn extra money that does not come from the
central government,www.ekurd.net
allowing the region, some limited autonomy with
its funds. For the larger organized crime rings,
this is something they have been doing for the
last twenty years, and offers them large profits
as the Iraqi oil industry is badly regulated
making it easy to skim off and steal crude to be
sold in places like Iran.
SOURCES
Davies, Rhodri, “Tanker trucks line up on North
Iraq-Iran border,” Al Jazeera Blogs, 2/4/11
Jawad, Laith, “Minister says smuggling of Iraqi
oil goes on unabated,” Azzaman, 12/17/11
Kadhem, Adel, “$20 million worth of southern
Iraqi oil are smuggled via Kurdish region,”
Azzaman, 2/17/12
Natali, Denise, “Iraq’s flaws are losing it oil
wealth,” Daily Star, 3/11/11
Reuters, “SPECIAL REPORT – Risk, reward and
Kurdistani oil,” 3/10/11
Saadi, Salam and Ahmed, Hevidar, “Hussein
Shahristani: Connecting Kurdistan to Nabucco
Pipeline Out of the Question,” Rudaw, 5/24/11
El-Tablawy, Tarek and Barzanji, Yahya, “Oil
smuggling to Iran embarrassment for Iraq,”
Associated Press, 7/13/10
Al-Wannan, Jaafar, “Erbil exports 75,000 barrels
of oil illegally,” AK News, 12/17/11
Pictures of smugglers in Sulaymaniya preparing
to take alcohol into Iran, January 2012
Joel Wing, with an MA in International Relations,
Joel Wing has been researching and writing about
Iraq since 2002. His acclaimed blog, Musings on
Iraq, is currently listed by the New York Times and
the World Politics Review. In addition, Mr. Wing’s
work has been cited by the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, the Guardian and the
Washington Independent. You may visit his Blog
Musings On Iraq at musingsoniraq.blogspot.com
Copyright © 2012 ekurd.net
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