SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdistan Region Ministry of Natural Resources on Thursday replied to the Federal government’s latest attempt to control the Region’s oil revenue by threatening the buyers of crude supplies.
The Kurdistan Region Ministry of Natural Resources in a statement told Iraq’s Ministry of Oil that the attempts to control the Regions oil revenue are to disrupt the talks between Erbil and Baghdad.
According to a letter issued by Iraq’s Ministry of Oil dated back to August 23, Iraq’s state-owned oil marketer SOMO has threatened fresh legal action against buyers of oil from the Kurdistan Region.
Iraq has recently made fresh attempts to control revenue from the Kurdistan Region by urging oil and gas firms operating there to sign new contracts with state-owned marketer SOMO rather than the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The letter is the latest in a series of moves by Iraq’s oil ministry, and the Kurdistan Region Ministry of Natural Resources said, “The letter is nothing but another drop of fabricated misleading information and it’s politically motivated”.
The KRG has been developing oil and gas resources independently of the federal government, and in 2007 enacted its own law that established the directives by which the region would administer them.
In February, Iraq’s federal court deemed the oil and gas law regulating the oil industry in Kurdistan unconstitutional and demanded that the KRG hand over their crude supplies.
The Kurdistan Regional Government has repeatedly rejected the ruling.
“The letter is an attempt to disrupt the talks between Erbil and Baghdad and obstruct them, and that is the extension of the same policy of Iraq’s Federal court that has taken against the Kurdistan Region,” it added.
The statement reiterated the KRG’s rejection of the supreme court ruling, saying it did not recognize the court’s legitimacy.
