SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said the Kurdistan Region’s constitutional rights should have been taken into account in the Iraq’s federal court’s decision on the Region’s oil and gas.
On Tuesday, the Iraqi federal court stated in its decision that the KRG must hand over all crude from the Kurdistan Region and neighboring areas to the federal government.
It further said the KRG oil contracts with oil companies, foreign parties and states “invalid”, including exploration, extraction and sale agreements.
It also ruled to commit the KRG to allow the Iraqi oil ministry to “review all oil contracts entered into by KRG for the export and sale of oil and gas”.
“Despite protecting the principles of the Iraqi Constitution, the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan Region should have been taken into account,” PUK spokesman Amin Babashekh said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It is necessary and possible to think about resolving the issues between the Kurdistan Region and the Iraqi federal government at this stage, not deteriorating them,” he added.
He called on the parties to avoid violating the Iraqi constitution for any “narrow political purposes”.
“The constitutional texts should be implemented for issues such as the oil and gas law and other significant issues in order to protect the federal system and promote the political process in Iraq,” the PUK spokesman stated.
He also urged parties to resolve the issues through political dialogue and understanding.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been developing oil and gas resources independently of the federal government, and in 2007 entered its own law that established the directives by which the Region would administer these resources.
KRG crude is exported through a pipeline that runs from Iraq’s Kirkuk region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Iraq’s federal government has long called for all oil exports in the country to go through it, having previously lashed out at Turkey in 2012 and 2014 for its role in refining and re-exporting oil produced in the Kurdistan Region.
On Tuesday, the KRG said on Tuesday the ruling itself was “unjust, unconstitutional” and “unacceptable”.
The KRG would not “forfeit the rights of the Kurdistan Region as codified in the Iraqi Constitution, and will continue its attempts to reach a constitutional solution with the federal government on this matter”.
Separately, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said the ruling would further “exacerbate the disputes” between Baghdad and Erbil on the issues of oil and gas.
“At a time when Iraq is passing through a turbulent political period, it is unfortunate that the ruling of the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq deems the Kurdistan Region’s oil and gas law unconstitutional, causing the Kurdistan region great concern,” he said on Wednesday.
Iraq’s constitution says regions and provinces can have a modicum of independence over oil but that the specifics should be spelled out in a separate law. Such a law has never been passed.
Baghdad filed a lawsuit challenging the region’s claims in 2012. The case was suspended in the last known hearing in September 2019 after the judge requested that then-Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi sign off on continuing the legal battle.
