KRG Forms New Government As Tensions Continue Over Oil Exports
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has only just formed a new cabinet after initially announcing in January that Nechirvan Barzani would take over as prime minister. The ministerial appointments come against a backdrop of intense political wrangling between the Kurds and Baghdad over oil payments, which came to a head the previous week as the KRG announced it had stopped sending oil through Iraq’s northern pipeline to Turkey (MEES, 9 April). Frustrated by the continued dispute with the Iraqi federal government over payment commitments, the KRG revealed it had stopped all exports of its oil “until further notice.” Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Husain al-Shahristani responded by criticizing the terms being offered to international oil companies (IOCs) by the KRG, describing them as not profitable, too generous and “what they [IOCs] dreamt of in any place in the world.”
On 5 April, the Kurdistan parliament announced it had approved the new KRG cabinet, which saw Mr Barzani replacing Barham Salih as prime minister. Speaking in his new capacity, Mr Barzani stressed the importance of collective effort, involving the rival political parties in the north. “We must begin a national dialogue to build a consensus on how we can improve our society,” he said. “We also must have a united front in our negotiations with Baghdad, and at present the mechanism does not exist to create this united view. We must move ahead quickly with the formation of a High Council for Negotiations to oversee these discussions,” he continued.
In a completely unprecedented move however, the entire Kurdish parliamentary delegation in Baghdad is understood to have urged the KRG to resume oil exports, exposing cracks within the Kurdish hierarchy. “It was the entire parliamentary block of the Kurds in Baghdad, including the [Masoud al-Barzani-led] KDP,” MENA Deputy Program Director for the International Crisis Group Joost Hiltermann told MEES. “This is interesting because you would expect a split to happen between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) on this issue. Even Muhsin al-Sa'dun, who is a prominent KDP representative, was opposing it. So he was effectively parting ways with his own leader, which is very unusual,” he explained.
This period of heightened diplomatic tensions and activity meanwhile coincided with a visit by the Kurdish President, Masoud Barzani, to the US, which he described as both constructive an encouraging. “The most important point is that both President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden reaffirmed that the US is committed to its close and historic relationship with Kurdistan and the Kurdish people, and reaffirmed support for a federal, democratic and unified Iraq,” Mr Barzani said.
Despite this expression of satisfaction from the Kurdish president however, it is believed President Barzani did not quite achieve that which he most hoped for from the meetings. “The Kurds were asking for a special relationship, roughly modeled on the US’s special relationship with Israel. But clearly, the Obama administration turned them down,” Mr Hiltermann noted. “They’ll have a good relationship. Just not the special relationship the Kurds were after, which would include a security guarantee,” he continued. Instead, Mr Barzani is thought to have been pressed in more ways than one by the US government, to re-engage with Baghdad and make a concerted effort to work together towards solving the many outstanding issues that remain.
Copyright MEES 2012.
