ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s oil ministry on Friday rejected claims from oil producers that it is unwilling to negotiate the resumption of Kurdish oil exports and called for an urgent meeting of “concerned parties.”
“The Iraqi government has taken concrete and serious steps to demonstrate its good faith in negotiations and to ensure the swift and responsible resumption of oil exports via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline,” the ministry said in a statement, and called for “an urgent meeting with the concerned parties to resume negotiations and dialogue, provided that the negotiation is conducted in accordance with the amended budget law.”
Despite months of talks between Erbil, Baghdad, Turkey, and oil producers, and with American pressure, exports of Kurdistan Region’s oil remain stalled two years after they were halted following a court ruling in favor of Baghdad that Ankara had breached a treaty by allowing independent Kurdish oil exports. The halt has cost billions of dollars in lost revenue.
In late March, the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), an umbrella group of eight international oil producing firms, said the Iraqi government is "unwilling" to negotiate a solution that honors their contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and is instead trying to unilaterally alter them.
“The Ministry of Oil regrets the publication of this erroneous and misleading statement,” the oil ministry said on Friday.
The ministry said that “the primary challenge” to the negotiations are “non-constructive steps” and “unrealistic demands” made by other parties outside of the existing legal framework.
The Iraqi parliament in early February approved amendments to the federal budget law that authorized a $16 per barrel production and transport fees for Erbil and international oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region. This move was seen as crucial to restarting Kurdish oil exports.
The amendments also stipulated that the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) must establish an international technical consultant body within 60 days to assess production and transportation costs for oil fields in the Kurdistan Region. If no agreement is reached, the federal council of ministers will appoint the body.
