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| Iraq |
| Kurds making their own Iraq oil deals |
| 2003-05-15 |
| EFL A Kurdish political party working with the United States to shape an interim government in Iraq has quietly pushed ahead on three oil development projects, acting autonomously as a local government. You may well ask; "Won't the Turkish government object about the Kurds acting like they are in control of the northern oil fields? Isn't that why they threatened to move their troops into Northern Iraq?" Yes, but keep reading. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq, has signed production-sharing contracts with two Turkish companies, PetOil and General Energy, to develop and survey oilfields in north-east Iraq, according to Rasheed Khoshnaw, deputy director of the party's special projects division. That's why the Turks are so quiet. Clever people, those Kurds. Party officials also agreed recently to allow an Australian company to do surveying work in eastern Iraq, Mr Khoshnaw said. He did not name the company. Mr Khoshnaw said that the most recent of the oil agreements was concluded three months before the war in Iraq began in March. At that time, United Nations sanctions limiting Iraqi oil exports were firmly in place, although now the Security Council is considering a resolution that would lift them. I think a new slogan is in order, "No Oil For The U.N.!" |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #3 Maybe they could sell some augmented Kurdish mail-order brides, too. "I'd buy that for a dollar!" |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-05-15 14:29:05 |
| #2 Lots of that oil went to Turkey anyway, hundreds of tanker truck loads a day. "Smuggled", if you can call it that when everyone knows that it's going on. I blogged a few weeks ago that the Kurds would be facing a cash crunch with the liberation of Iraq. Looks like they found some revenue augmentation. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-15 13:37:32 |
| #1 *blinks* I am becoming more and more impressed by the cleverness, adaptability, and clear-sightedness of the Kurds. They are not letting past grievances cloud their judgment or their future. Also, the sanctions were imposed on Saddam, NOT THE KURDS, who've been de-facto independent ever since the set-up of the no-fly zones. The kurds can wrap themselves in the Genocide flag and dare the French to look them in the face while saying, "You can't do that, because you represent Saddam, even though Saddam gassed you." The moment the Soviets get huffy because of the lost contract, Turkey will jump in, pulling NATO in with it. Clever indeed. They may be forced, however, to have to keep the money and spend it on themselves until sanctions are lifted, since sending the money to Uncle Sam so it can be put into rebuilding the rest of Iraq could be seen as money laundering. That's a no-no. *snicker* However, they can magnanimously turn down their share of the oil-for-palaces program. I'll wait, however, until the sanctions are lifted: if the contracts get rolled over to the Interim Iraqi Government, then, my countrymen, the Kurds will have become a moral superpower, rvialling our hegemony. It'll be great to have the competition. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-05-15 13:33:06 |