Parliamentary power: the resumption of the export of Kirkuk gesture to resolve the dispute between Baghdad and Erbil


2016/8/21 9:05


[Oan- special]

I went back to the Commission on oil and energy parliamentary, the resumption of the federal government for the export of crude oil in the province of Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan via the pipelines of the Kurdistan region, "gesture" to resolve the dispute between Baghdad and Erbil regarding exports.

Committee Chairman Ares Abdullah, told all of Iraq [where] that "the resumption of pumping oil from the Kirkuk fields through pipelines Kurdistan region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan sign of a good start to solve the lingering crisis between Baghdad and Erbil since 2014 regarding oil exports."

"We encourage the parties to resolve the dispute and we welcome any initiative to solve any of them which is a good thing."

Abdullah pointed out that "now required negotiations between the two sides resolve the problem temporarily and then agree on a draft oil and gas law and enacted by Parliament to end the problem."

He pointed out, that "the oil agreement between Baghdad and Erbil good agreement but did not abide by any of the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government and remained a dead letter," returned the agreement as "a solution to the dispute temporary, but the solution is permanent needs to enact a law."

"The enactment of the oil and gas law before the end of the current parliamentary session is inevitable."

The North Oil Company of the Federal Ministry of Oil in Baghdad had resumed last Thursday pumping oil from fields operated in the province of Kirkuk through a pipeline controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government, at a rate of 70,000 barrels per day.

An official at the company told Reuters on Friday, said that the federal government plans to increase crude flows that are pumped through the pipeline that extends to Turkey to reach the normal average of 150 thousand barrels per day in the next week.

The new oil minister Jabbar Allaibi which parliament approved his nomination Monday that "the ministry is seeking to increase production, and there is no difficulty in agreeing with the Kurdistan region regarding exports, we are dealing with the region as part of Iraq, and there is no difficulty in order to find solutions to the crisis between Baghdad and Erbil. "

The row in years between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan region on the validity of the export of oil and confined in the absence of oil and gas inactivated law passed for years, but the two sides reached in December 2014 an agreement to export the region 250,000 barrels of production with 300,000 barrels of Kirkuk province, fields vs. to pay Baghdad Kurdistan's share of the federal budget by 17%, but this agreement has struggled since then with the exchange of accusations between Baghdad and Erbil non-compliance, but did not announce any of them terminate the agreement.


Link