
politicsKurdistan RegionbreakingIraqi governmentexports oil
2022-06-29 14:08A-AA+
Shafaq News/ On Wednesday, the United States called on the federal governments in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region to negotiate the dispute over oil, and to benefit from the United Nations mission mandated to assist in this regard.
Al-Hurra station quoted a statement by a US State Department spokesman, in which he stressed, “The government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government should sit at the negotiating table to reach a solution to the oil issue that is acceptable to both parties and avoid taking steps that inflame tensions.”
He added that “the new mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) specifically mandates it to assist the parties in achieving this.”
He added, “Therefore, we encourage the governments of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq to make maximum use of the good offices of the United Nations Mission.”
And last February, the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq, the highest judicial authority in the country, issued an order obligating the Kurdistan Regional Government to hand over all the oil produced on its lands to the central government.
And the court’s decision remains threatened not to be implemented in light of a dispute dating back to years over oil resources between the federal government and the Kurdistan Region, which includes 3 provinces and has been autonomous since 1991.
And the court’s decision stated, “obligating the regional government to hand over the entire oil production from the oil fields in the Kurdistan Region (…) to the federal government represented by the Federal Ministry of Oil.”
Iraq’s exports, which is the second largest oil exporter in the Organization of “OPEC”, amount to about 3.5 million barrels per day, and its financial imports represent 90% of the country’s budget.
The Kurdistan Region had pledged to deliver 250 thousand barrels of its daily production, which exceeds 400 thousand barrels, to the central government through the Ministry of Oil, in exchange for receiving the salaries of employees and Peshmerga fighters, the armed forces of the region.
The region’s oil exports have been the subject of frequent controversy over the past years, with Baghdad demanding that all the country’s oil exports be subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Oil of the central government.