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Kurds will not back new government without guarantees - Saleh

June 15, 2010 - 12:30:50

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Kurds will not support the new government without written guarantees from Iraq’s main political leaders on key Kurdish issues, according to Kurdistan region’s Prime Minister Barham Saleh.
“Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region wants written guarantees from Iraq’s main political leaders that key Kurdish issues, such as the region’s right to oversee its oil resources, will be protected before it backs a new Iraqi government,” he said.
“We would like to see clear guarantees that some of the marginalization that the Kurds have suffered (in recent years) will not be repeated,” Saleh said, in an interview in London with The Wall Street Journal.
He added that “these (guarantees) have to be written by whoever will be forming the next government.”
“Saleh’s comments come amid a political standoff that has left the Kurds in a position to play kingmaker in the formation of Iraq’s next government,” the newspaper commented.
Iraq’s new parliament met on Monday in a short and largely symbolic session, three months after parliamentary polls. No single bloc won a majority, forcing politicians to scramble to cut deals with each other in the pursuit of a grand coalition that would be able to form a government.
The Kurdish alliance-comprised of the Kurds’ two main political parties, which captured 43 seats in the Iraqi election-would give the Shiite alliance more than enough political backing to form a government.
Kurdish politicians have signaled they wouldn’t be opposed to joining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as they did in the previous government. Saleh, who served as deputy prime minister under Iraq’s previous government, declined to say whether he would support his old boss, Maliki, for prime minister.
But Saleh said Kurdish support for either side would need to be conditional on promises over key Kurdish issues, including oil policy.
The Kurdish government has long argued that its management of oil resources in its three-province northern territory is protected by Iraq’s post-war constitution. The Kurds have signed dozens of production-sharing contracts with foreign companies over the past three years, but Baghdad has refused to recognize them.
“The contracts need to be honored. We believe we are within our constitutional rights,” Saleh said. Disagreement over the oil contract issue led the Kurds and the companies operating in their region to halt about 100,000 barrels a day of oil exports last year.
The Kurds and the central government reached a deal several weeks ago over paying foreign oil companies for the costs they have incurred working in Kurdistan, which could pave the way for Kurdish oil exports to re-start. But Saleh said details on how payment will be made are still being worked out.

SH (I)

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