Iraqi Government Warns Kurdistan Region Against 'Smuggling' Oil
The ongoing dispute over oil between the central Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil has intensified, writes Omar al-Shaher.
The crisis between Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and Erbil, the capital of the semi-independent Kurdistan Region in the north, has escalated. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani, one of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s strongest allies, said that the federal government will consider the region’s oil exportations that it is uninvolved with to be “smuggling operations.”
During a gathering in the Al-Rashid hotel in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Shahrastani added that some quantities of oil are exported by the Kurdish government without the knowledge of the federal government, and he promised to halt these operations.
“Baghdad will consider such operations to be ‘smuggling,’ in the future,” he indicated.
Shahrastani is the Kurds’ worst enemy in Baghdad. Consequently, the Kurds promised Maliki to give the current government their vote of confidence, provided that Maliki distance Shahristani from handling the Ministry of Oil, which he formerly headed.
