ARBIL, Sept 27: Iraq’s Kurdish regional government raised the threat of secession on Wednesday if the Baghdad government did not drop its claims to a say in the development of oil resources in their northern districts.
In a strongly worded response to comments by the Iraqi oil minister, the premier of the autonomous Kurdistan region said he ‘resented’ the remarks by Hussain al-Shahristani and accused him of trying to ‘sabotage’ foreign investment in Kurdish oil.
“The people of Kurdistan chose to be in a voluntary union with Iraq on the basis of the constitution,” Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said in a statement on his official Web site. “If Baghdad ministers refuse to abide by that constitution, the people of Kurdistan reserve the right to reconsider our choice.”
Mr Barzani said he was responding to an interview Shahristani gave to a Baghdad newspaper this week in which he restated the view of the Oil Ministry that recent contracts signed by the Kurdish regional government with foreign firms to develop oilfields in the area were subject to the ministry’s review.
Mr Shahristani, from the predominantly Shia Islamist bloc in the national unity government, has said he favours strengthening central control of Iraq’s oil, although a new constitution gives autonomous federal regions a role in developing such resources.
The issue of just how powers are divided between Baghdad and the regions is at the heart of a bitter sectarian and ethnic dispute. The government is drafting legislation to clarify how oil investment and revenues should be shared with a view to encouraging foreign investment to develop its vast resources.
Leaders of the Kurds, about one in five of Iraq’s 26 million people, regularly remind Baghdad politicians that they reserve a right to secede. However, they are mindful of hostility to their independence from their US allies as well as from neighbouring Turkey, Iran and Syria, which also have big Kurdish populations.
KURDISH CONTRACTS: The Kurds, effectively independent of Baghdad since breaking from Saddam Hussein’s rule in 1991, have struck two oil deals with foreign firms in the past year, while the four-month-old national government in Baghdad has yet to sign new contracts.
In May, Turkey’s Genel Enerji and Canada’s Addax Petroleum signed a 25-year production-sharing agreement with the Kurdish authority for the Taq Taq oilfield. Norwegian firm DNO signed a deal last November to drill for oil.
Mr Barzani highlighted elements of the Iraqi constitution which provide for joint control of oil and gas fields in production. Kurds argue that new fields fall under regional control.
“I resent Dr. Shahristani’s efforts to sabotage foreign investment in Kurdistan’s oil sector,” he said.
“Dr. Shahristani would better spend his time getting his ministry working rather than tearing down our achievements.”
The Oil Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment. Shahristani says he wants to encourage foreign firms to invest in Iraq. Legislation to regulate such investments is in the works and ministers hope parliament can pass it this year.
Competition between Kurds and Arabs for control of Iraq’s big northern oilfield around Kirkuk is a major potential source of conflict. The field lies outside the present Kurdish region but Kurds want a referendum to bring Kirkuk into their area.
Many Shias are keen to emulate the Kurds’ autonomy but Iraq’s parliament this week agreed to delay the formation of any new regions until at least 2008 to let passions cool. Formerly dominant Arab Sunnis fear a new federal region in the oil-rich, Shia south, along with Kurdish expansion in the north, could deprive them of the benefits of Iraq’s oil.—Reuters