The prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, will be in Baghdad this week to discuss a range of oil-related issues, Reuters reports.
It’s bound to be a not-too-pleasant discussion as Baghdad leadership is in its most aligned state ever against the Kurdistan Regional Government’s unilateral moves in the oil sector.
(Of course, Iraq Oil Report readers are not surprised by this development. We reported on it last Monday, and gave you more details on Wednesday and Friday.
According to Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, Barzani will meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other officials on budgetary issues, as well the stalled national oil law and the KRG oil deals.
Baghdad and Irbil blame each other for the national oil law hold up, and the Kurds say it went forward signing its own oil deals without a new law governing the sector because it didn’t want to delay development.
Exactly what will be accomplished is not sure. Each side is loathe to compromise on this issue, each with face to save and a governing coalition to maintain. And, at least in rhetoric, both claim the constitution on their side. It will be interesting to see what concessions are made, if any, by either side, and if there are enough chips on the table to create some sort of grand bargain not only on the KRG contracts but the oil law and other contentious issues.
Iraq’s Parliament is to hear from both the regional and national oil minister as well this week.
But, oops: at least 70 Parliamentarians are making Hajj, and the next session won’t be held until Dec. 29, AFP reports.
Parliamentarian Osama al-Najefi is accusing the KRG of sponsoring a Canadian firm in its oil exploration in Ninewa, Voices of Iraq reports. He says it’s being done without official approval. correction (not on my work but the linked story): Najefi is not a Shiite, as the story says, but a Sunni aligned with Allawi.
As Iraqis Vie for Kirkuk’s Oil, Kurds Are Pawns, by Stephen Farrell in The New York Times.
It’s a timely snapshot behind the scenes in the fight over oil-rich Kirkuk and other disputed territories, (despite a few minor errors).
Attacking Iraq
A new spate of attacks on Iraq’s oil sector is underway over the past five days.
The Latest:
The Dora refinery in Baghdad was set ablaze by a rocket, Al Jazeera reports.
“It is believed that a rocket landed on one of the storage tanks for refined crude in the al-Dora refinery,” said oil ministry spokesman Assim Jihad.
More from Reuters
Baiji, where Iraq’s largest oil refinery is located, was under attack again over the weekend. Tina Sussman of the Los Angeles Times reports a truck-driving suicide bomber killed six police officers and injured 16 people.
Baiji is where the Kirkuk pipeline dips toward before ascending to Turkey. Iraq Oil Report had more on Friday’s attack, on the pipeline between Kirkuk and Baiji.
Also on Friday, the latest data on oil and power sector attacks from March 2003 to Nov. 17, 2007.
Security, Society and Politics
Iraq’s foreign minister officially asked the U.N. to extend the mandate for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Associated Press reports via the Wall Street Journal.
Also at issue is a “timeline” for U.S. troops. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the new one-year mandate will be the last, and then it will transition to U.S. troops under a new and controversial proposed U.S.-Iraq security agreement, with no “permanent” U.S. military presence in Iraq, eventually. That’s what Baghdad and Washington are saying, anyway.
The British will handover oil-rich Basra within two weeks, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a surprise Iraq visit, Al Bawaba reports.
However, “Frankly speaking, we have rifles, machine-guns and a few armored vehicles, which aren’t as advanced as the British weaponry and are insufficient to maintain full control of the province,” Basra Province Police Chief Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf told The Associated Press.
And if this is any measure of success: Women are being targeted now more than ever by religious fanatics in Basra, also a story from last Friday’s Iraq Oil Report.
The police chief of Hilla, capital of Babil province, was killed by a roadside bomb, the BBC reports.
KRG opens a “microcredit foundation,” according to the region’s website.
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said, “In line with the KRG’s interest in developing the private sector, supporting our society’s low income families, and encouraging self-confidence and self-reliance, the KRG has allocated 5 million US dollars as a first step to initiate this activity in the Kurdistan Region.”
———–
