Arbil, Iraq - The government of the semi-autonomous Kurdish
region in northern Iraq announced on Sunday that it expected a
'historic' windfall from oil exports from the region, despite a
dispute with Baghdad over the exports.
The regional government's Ministry of Natural Resources on Sunday
said the Kurdish region would export roughly 100,000 barrels of crude
oil a day in the next month from two oil fields, days after an
official from the Oil Ministry in Baghdad denied there had been an
agreement on exports.
The issue of oil exports from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region
in northern Iraq remains a source of dispute between Arbil and
Baghdad, and an oil law governing the export of crude has been held
up in the Iraqi parliament since 2007.
In a statement carried on Sunday by most newspapers in Arbil, the
capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, the Kurdish government
said it would export about 60,000 barrels of oil a day to Turkey from
the Tawke field, near the city of Dohuk, some 460 kilometres north of
Baghdad.
An additional 40,000 barrels a day would flow from the Taq Taq
field to Turkey, the statement said, noting that the proceeds from
the oil would 'benefit of Iraqi people as a whole.'
'This historic achievement marks a record in the Kurdistani
regional government's efforts to increase Iraqi oil production and
revenues for the benefit of all the Iraqi people,' the statement
said.
In remarks published in Iraqi newspapers Saturday, Assem Jihad, a
spokesman for the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said there 'had been no
agreement between Arbil and Baghdad on oil exports from the province
of Kurdistan.'
The central Iraqi government's Oil Ministry had previously said
that agreements on oil exports from the Kurdish region 'were signed
illegally, without the knowledge of the federal government.'
Kurdish officials say the agreements were legal, and were struck
in accordance with the Iraqi constitution.
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