BAGHDAD, Aug 13: Iraqi leaders, under intense US pressure, have reached tentative agreement on oil wealth distribution, perhaps the most divisive issue for the country’s disparate ethnic and religious groups.

Panelists finalising Iraq’s constitution said on Saturday a deal had been struck to share the world’s second largest known oil reserves, which are concentrated in the Kurdish-controlled north and largely Shia south.

“An in principle agreement has been reached late yesterday that Iraq’s oil revenues will be shared between the Shias, the Kurds and the Sunnis,” Sunni panelist Saleh al Motlag said.

Many Sunnis fear that if Iraq adopts a federal structure, the country’s oil wealth will be divided up between the Kurdish and Shia regions, leaving them with nothing.

But Mr Motlag explained that while a percentage of oil revenue would go to the federal government, the rest would be distributed centrally to each governorate according to its population size.

“All the groups have agreed on this,” said Mr Motlag, one of the representatives on the 71-member constitution committee struggling to draw up a draft charter before Monday’s deadline.

Some reports indicated the federal government of each oil-producing region would take a revenue share of about five per cent, with the rest going to Baghdad for nationwide distribution. A Kurdish member of the panel expressed caution over interpreting the apparent consensus as an end to problems over the division of Iraq’s oil wealth. —AFP