Kurdistan will never give up control of its oil – Kurdistan PM

(IraqiNews.com) The Prime Minister of Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, said that his government would never give up control of the region’s oil to Baghdad. He was speaking at the parliament when he said this. The message is allegedly directed towards officials of Baghdad who had reduced Kurdistan’s regional budget for the third consecutive month in May.

The Prime Minister informed the parliament that his government is open to discussions but if Baghdad closes all doors, it would not stand there doing nothing. He said that the decision of selling the region’s oil was a clear message for Baghdad to realize that his government will not back down in any condition. He also said that the government will do what it had promised in the past.

The comments come at a time when relations between rulers sitting in Erbil and Baghdad are not in good state as Baghdad reduced the region’s budget for three consecutive months. The budget cuts affected Kurdistan Regional Government and prevented it from paying the civil servants on time.

Kurdistan Regional Government started selling its oil through the Turkish Ceyhan port last week. Baghdad sees this move as a symbolic show of economic independence that could eventually build momentum for an outright break. The Kurdistan Regional Government thinks that selling oil is its constitutional right.

Barzani told the MPs that Baghdad is not entitled to the oil of Kurdistan because the demand is neither constitutional nor legal. He however said that his government agreed to the Iraqi government’s demand of monitoring the export of Kurdish oil. But it would never give the control of the region’s oil to the Iraqi government, he continued.

Barzani also highlighted Iraq’s economy and the budget cuts in his speech. He said that the country’s economy is in a good shape and there were no reason why the officials in Baghdad should reduce budget for Kurdistan. He added that the wage cuts were on direct orders from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

According to the agreements between the two sides, Baghdad is supposed to provide 17% of the national budget to Kurdistan after meeting all sovereign expenses. But over the years, Baghdad supposedly paid only 10%. Baghdad also owes about $5 billion to the Kurdistan Region in delayed funding at the moment.

The Prime Minister mentioned in his speech that his government is working on finding an alternative to pay wages for the civil servants.