Loading ...The Iraqi government has agreed to share the country’s vast oil wealth with Kurdish regional authorities in a landmark deal that could repair long-broken relations and help unify the armed effort against ISIL insurgents in the country.
Under the deal struck on Tuesday, 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Kirkuk will be exported via a pipeline through Kurdish territory into Turkey, in addition to 250,000 bpd from Kurdish oil fields. The crude will be sold by Iraq’s state oil marketing organization (SOMO), representing a major compromise by the Kurds, who have long insisted the constitution entitles them to sell oil on their own terms.
In return, Baghdad will resume budget payments to the Kurdish regional government (KRG), which has faced a financial crisis ever since the federal government cut funding to them early this year. Baghdad will also disburse $1 billion toward salaries and equipment of the Kurdish peshmerga forces, who have proven more successful than the Iraqi army in fending off the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) offensive.
The agreement will help Iraq boost crude exports at a time when its budget has been severely strained by tumbling oil prices and the steep costs of its war against ISIL, which has seized swathes of northern and western Iraq.
The deal was seen as the biggest political victory yet for Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who replaced sectarian predecessor Nouri al-Maliki in September.
The accord was also cheered in Washington, which has worked tirelessly to stave off the collapse of the Iraqi state as ISIL consolidates control over Sunni minority lands. In a Twitter post, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq Brett McGurk called the deal an “important breakthrough.”
more http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/2/iraq-oil-deal.html