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Baghdad fears Kurd oil grab
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The Standard - [4/20/2006]
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Leaders of Iraq's Kurdish north have unveiled a controversial plan to consolidate their hold on the region's future petroleum resources, raising concerns about how the ethnically divided nation will share its oil revenue.
The Kurdish parliament will be asked to vote on the creation of a Ministry of Natural Resources that would regulate potentially lucrative energy projects in newly discovered oil and natural gas fields within the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The new ministry, if established, would be another step in the Kurds' slow drift away from the Baghdad government, as well as a potentially destabilizing gesture in a country already on the verge of fragmenting on ethnic and religious lines.
Long oppressed and marginalized under successive Arab governments in Baghdad, Kurds pushed aggressively for a constitution that limits the central government's power and gives regional officials the authority to exploit newly discovered oil and gas fields. In a controversial move in November, a Norwegian energy firm began drilling for oil in northern Kurdistan. The regional government had signed the deal without seeking approval from Baghdad.
A vote on the proposed Kurdistan Ministry of Natural Resources could come as early as Monday.
"Forming a new ministry is an arrangement that will help increase oil production," said Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat who has advised the Kurds. "If oil production increases in Alaska, it may be that the Alaskans get a major part of the benefits, but Alaska is still part of the US."
Kurds and their supporters say the creation of a new ministry is well within the parameters of the constitution.
"There are people who haven't faced the reality of what has gone on in Iraq," said Galbraith. "They still think that the old central state is going to be put back together again. It's not going to happen in Kurdistan. It's not going to happen in the south. It's not going to happen in Baghdad." Each half of the Kurdish region, which split apart in a 1990s civil war, has its own defense, interior, health and education ministries. The constitution ratified in an October 15 referendum gave Kurdistan the authority to wheel-and-deal with the international petroleum industry within Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk, where Kurds make up more than 95 percent of the population.
But Kurds also lay claim to much of the region around Kirkuk, which is said to contain up to 40 percent of Iraq's known oil. A referendum on whether the disputed region will become part of Kurdistan is scheduled to take place before the end of 2007.
Officials in Baghdad, including allies of the Kurds, said they were blindsided by news of the proposed ministry.
"We know what the ambitions of the Kurds are," said Iyad al-Samarai, a leader of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party. "But everybody agreed to make such moves within the [national] political process." LOS ANGELES TIMES
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