No settlement between Baghdad and Kurdistan yet, regarding oil payments

On the matter of disbursing payment to the oil companies, no agreement has been done yet between Iraq and Kurdistan and the conflict is considered to stay long. It has to be noted that the dispute regarding the payment of the oil companies that are working in the Kurdish region, started a few years before as Baghdad thinks that the agreement with oil companies and Kurdish government was illegal. As those agreements were made without the consent of the Baghdad, they are regarded as illegal by Baghdad.

Despite of several meetings between Kurdistan regional government and Iraqi government, no particular solution regarding this dispute has been achieved. On this Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said that solutions are yet to be achieved after attending a meeting.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Kurdistan on Sunday for talks with Kurdish officials in a symbolic step to ending their long-running feud over oil and land, but there was little concrete progress.

According to Kurdistan regional government, the region owns more than 4 trillion Iraqi dinars. However, according to Iraqi government, the sum is around 3.5 billion Iraqi dinars. Both the parties are ardent on their logic on this context and hence, solutions cannot be achieved. "No deal has been reached. We have not discussed this issue during our visit to the region.", as stated by Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.

Iraq has world’s fourth largest proven oil reserves and the payment dispute regarding disagreement on payment for the foreign companies has been hampered the oil production and export of the country severely. Baghdad says the central government has the exclusive right to decide on oil development, but Kurdistan says the constitution allows it to sign its own oil contracts.

It has to be noted that crude oil from Kurdish oilfields was used to be exported through Baghdad controlled pipelines, leading to Turkey’s ports. But due to the dispute, export via this channel has been dried up since the last year.