Plus:
*Kurd leader Barzani says Kirkuk vote a must
*Who supports Shahristani on the KRG deals?
*$558M spent in Iraq oil sector, but no details, no transparency
*U.S. blamed for Basra refinery fire
*The Iraq Press Roundup
*and More
A majority of Iraq’s parliamentarians have signed an agreement against Iraqi Kurds’ moves to unilaterally develop the oil sector and control oil-rich Kirkuk, UPI reports.The new agreement between a dozen political factions in Iraq also aligns one-time opponents against a dominant Shiite political party that wants to create a large autonomous region in the oil-rich south.
A top Iraqi Kurdish leader says oil-rich Kirkuk’s fate will be decided in a vote, a day after a coalition of Sunni and Shiite Arabs united against Kurd plans, UPI reports.
Oil development or Iraq’s division?, Saadallah Al Fat’hi in Gulf News asks if Iraq’s government supports the oil minister in calling out the KRG’s oil deals.
The Iraqi government in Baghdad signed some $558.3 million worth of contracts with international companies to upgrade its downstream and upstream oil facilities in 2007, the Iraqi oil ministry said, Dow Jones Newswires reports. There are no details as to which firms won contracts, a blow to claims of transparency in Iraq.
A refinery fire in Iraq’s oil capital, Basra, with reports blaming a U.S. helicopter attack, has been contained without affecting output, UPI reports.
More from Argus Media.
Society, Security & Politics
The view from Iraq’s editorial pages, the Iraq Press Roundup by Hiba Dawood for UPI.
Unidentified gunmen have assassinated a senior member of the al-Sadr group led by Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr near Basra, Iran’s Press TV reports.
U.S. pushes Iraq to clear more ‘benchmarks’: Signs of political reconciliation are emerging in Iraq, raising US hopes that a logjam has broken, by Howard LaFranchi in The Christian Science Monitor
Turkey should have sealed off its borders to the PKK long ago, Ilnur Cevik writes in The New Anatolian. “We did not need American help in northern Iraq or air raids against the terrorist camps to start taking measures. Why didn’t anyone take these measures is an important question that needs to be answered.”
Why aren’t presidential candidates talking about the postwar era and how they would repair the damage this terrible war has done to the nation? After all, our own reconstruction is at stake, James Reston Jr. asks in USA Today.
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