**** Kurds withdraw from a meeting of the Iraqi cabinet in protest against the draft budget for 2014

January 15, 2014


Kurdish ministers withdrew from the meeting of the Iraqi Council of Ministers on Wednesday to protest against the country's draft budget for 2014 in a move that aggravate a dispute over plans for the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to export oil through a new pipeline to Turkey.

The government said last week that the Kurdistan oil began flowing in the pipeline but is expected to start exports at the end of January and invited bidders to register with the Marketing Organization of Petroleum in Kurdistan (Como).

Baghdad has rejected it, saying it was a violation of the constitution and renewed on Wednesday to say that the Iraqi Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) is the right owner forced to sell crude from Kurdistan and the rest of the country.

The draft budget is required Kurds to export 400 thousand barrels of oil per day - which is much higher than the current export capacity of the province - and says Baghdad will be deducted from their share of any shortfall of revenue amounting to 17 percent.

Iraqi parliament did not vote on the budget until now, which may be subject to some changes but Kurdish lawmakers said the project sends the wrong signal before a planned negotiations on conflict oil revenues.

The MP said the Kurdish Khoshnaw Rose "Certainly, this sends a negative message Baghdad adoption of the budget without the approval of the Kurdistan Regional Government ... should have been on the Iraqi government to grant more time for talks and negotiations with the Kurdistan Regional Government."

The Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament has boycotted the budget last year, but this did not prevent approval.

It is expected that the delegation headed by Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan region to visit Baghdad for talks aimed at easing the conflict, which is rooted in how to exploit Iraq's vast oil resources and the division of revenue.

He used the Kurdistan oil exports to Turkey through a pipeline controlled by Baghdad, but exports through that channel dried up a year ago because of a dispute over payments for companies operating in the region, located in northern Iraq.

Since then, the Kurds deliberately to transfer smaller amounts of crude to Turkey by truck and collect revenue directly while on the establishment of an independent pipeline was completed late last year.

He said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that he been a long time since the government has prepared the budget - which is estimated at 174.6 trillion dinars (150.12 billion dollars) - blaming the Kurds in the disabled.


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