Kurdistan PM, US Ambassador Discuss Erbil-Baghdad Tensions, Oil Deals
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and US ambassador to Iraq Robert Beecroft discussed the recent tensions between Erbil and Baghdad in a meeting early Sunday.
In the talks, Barzani stressed Kurdistan’s commitment to dialogue and a peaceful solution to tensions sparked by the deployment of Iraqi troops in the disputed territories.
“Kurdistan’s political leaders have always believed that these problems can only be solved through dialogue,” Barzani said. “Therefore we will spare no effort to find a peaceful solution.”
Barzani said that a Kurdish delegation from the Ministry of Peshmerga was in Baghdad last week to negotiate with the Iraqi government on the subject of the Dijla forces. He said that initially positive progress was made, but that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had rejected the delegation’s recommendations for peace.
Erbil-Baghdad tensions have been high over the past few weeks after Kurdistan’s leaders reacted angrily to Maliki’s decision to deploy his Dijla forces in areas south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Kurdistan’s leaders sent in thousands of their own Peshmerga forces armed with heavy weaponry into the disputed areas.
“We will not accept those areas to be ruled one-sidedly by Iraq,” Barzani said in his meeting with the US ambassador.
The autonomous region’s oil and gas policy also were among topics discussed by the Kurdish premier and the US ambassador.
“We run our oil policy based on the Iraqi constitution,” Barzani said. “We are using our constitutional rights.”
Baghdad opposes most of Kurdistan’s oil deals with foreign companies and has threatened in the past to blacklist multinationals like Exxon Mobil from operating in the center and south of Iraq unless they cancel their contracts with Erbil.
Currently close to 50 foreign companies, among them France’s Total and Russia’s Gazprom, are operating in the Kurdistan Region.
In his meeting with Barzani, the US ambassador said that his government respects Erbil’s oil deals with foreign companies and that he hoped all tensions are resolved peacefully.
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