A Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation met with Iraqi oil ministry officials on Sunday following Baghdad’s decision to halt crude oil exports from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and northern Kirkuk fields through Turkey, Rudaw reported.
Baghdad last week won a longstanding arbitration case against Turkey with respect to KRG’s oil exports through Ceyhan port in southern Turkey.
Following Baghdad’s decision, KRG officials and the oil ministry discussed upcoming steps and mechanisms for exporting the region’s oil, Rudaw said.
“We are not against the Kurdistan Region being given its rights, whether in the budget or in oil. The constitution says that oil belongs to all Iraqis and the Kurdish people are part of the sons of this country,” Rudaw quoted Bassem al-Gharibawi, a member of the Iraqi oil and gas committee, as saying.
“There must be compliance with the laws and the constitution, and the management of the oil topic must be in the hands of the federal government,” al-Gharibawi said.
The exportation of the Kurdistan Region’s oil through Turkey will “definitely” resume in the upcoming days, said Nahro Mahmoud, a Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) lawmaker, adding that the pause in experts also harms the Iraqi federal government.
