Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Pursuing the PKK Militants is Excluded in the Security Agreement Between Iraq and Turkey

Turkey and Iraq inked Friday a security agreement for combating terrorism excluding the most item which is hot military pursuing of the PKK Militants in Iraqi Kurdistan region.

Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay on the Turkish side signed the agreement with his Iraqi counterpart Jawad Al-Bolani.

The negotiations which lasted three days in Ankara concerning the detail of the agreement, but the two countries failed to agree on a draft provision that would have reportedly allowed Turkey -- with prior Iraqi authorization -- to conduct "hot pursuit", or small-scale military operations across the border to hunt down militants of the PKK.

Both ministers held a joint news conference in which Atalay stressed that Turkey respects the sovereignty of Iraq and its integrity, however he stressed that fighting terrorism cannot be done separately and unilaterally, but, saying their is a crucial need for serious cooperation for eradicating terrorism.

He also said: “We are waiting Iraq to enlarge its serious moves for combating terrorism jointly with Turkey."

Regarding the core of the agreement, Atalay said that it stipulates that Iraq doesn’t permit any terrorist activities to be launched from its territories against any other country; also it doesn’t allow the terrorists to establish political parties.

Concerning the hot military pursuing of the PKK Militants in Iraqi Kurdistan region, Turkish Interior Minister said: “We didn’t sign this item, but discussions will go on about “hot pursue” and we hope it will be dealt with soon.”

He indicated that the formation of a coordination committee for following up the agreement every six –months has been agreed upon, in addition to establishing two coornation offices in both sides’ borders for following up the PKK activities.

Media channels yesterday announced that the reason behind delayment of signing the agreement was some differences, particularly relating authorizing the Turkish military to pursue PKK militants inside the Iraqi territories after getting permission from the Iraqi federal government.

PUKmedia :: English - Pursuing the PKK Militants is Excluded in the Security Agreement Between Iraq and Turkey

Iranian Bombardment of Kurdistan Region Borders Areas Continues

The Iranian artillery a short wile ago resumed its bombardment of Kurdistan Region Borders Areas in Kodo, Kani Kutaf, Kulian, Dole, Kani Rash, Bardi Tashe Res, Dola Sebar, Kani Spi, which are related to Choman district near the Iraqi-Iranian borders.

The Iranian artillery shelled 18 times in one minute, but as the areas previously were evacuated, there were no casualties, PUKmedia correspondent in the area said.

PUKmedia :: English - Iranian Bombardment of Kurdistan Region Borders Areas Continues

Iraq PM rejects U.S. Congress Call for Federalism

The Iraqi PM, Dr. Nouri al-Maliki, refused today the decision of US Congress for dividing Iraq into three federal regions, indicating that it will be a disaster to Iraq, calling Council of Representatives to meet and to refuse the decision US Congress officially.

PUKmedia :: English - Iraq PM rejects U.S. Congress Call for Federalism

U.S. warns Iraq oil deal may fizzle

A controversial deal by the Hunt Oil Co. with an Iraqi regional government faces "significant legal uncertainty" and undermines American efforts to strengthen Iraq's national unity, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said Thursday.

The official, who insisted on anonymity, warned that Dallas-based Hunt and a handful of small companies that have signed similar deals could find themselves caught in a legal battle between the Iraqi federal government and the northern, semi-independent Kurdistan region.

"We think that these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) and the government of Iraq, who both share a common interest in the passage of national legislation," the official said.

The deals are for areas where oil hasn't been found, not for Iraq's massive existing oil fields, which would remain under the control of the national oil company. Kurdistan and Hunt officials have declined to reveal the terms. Typically in such a deal, Hunt would get a share of the revenues after it discovers, develops and begins pumping oil.

The Iraqi oil minister has called the Hunt deal illegal, but the leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government say it's in the country's best interest to boost oil production because a proposed national law seems to be going nowhere in parliament.

The law, which would divide oil and natural-gas revenues among Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Muslims and Kurds and would regulate how the country's oil fields are developed and run, has been stalled for months. Most of Iraq's oil is in the southern Shiite and northern Kurdish regions; the Sunnis, who ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein and tyrannized the Shiites and Kurds, have virtually no oil.

http://www.twincities.com/national/c...nclick_check=1

UPDATE 1-Iraq Kurdish region says new oil deals are legal

Iraq's Kurdish regional government (KRG) said on Friday that oil and gas deals it has signed since February are legal, rejecting Baghdad's claim that the deals breach the country's law.

Iraq's cabinet agreed a draft law for dividing the world's third-largest oil reserves in February, but rows with the KRG, as well as objections from some Shi'ite and Sunni Arab politicians have slowed its progress.

Frustrated by Baghdad's delays, the semi-autonomous KRG approved its own oil law in August and announced this month it had signed a production-sharing contract with a unit of U.S.-based Hunt Oil Co. and with Impulse Energy Corp. In April the KRG signed a service contract with the United Arab Emirate's Dana Gas (DANA.AD: Quote, Profile, Research).

"The Hunt contract was signed...according to the enacted regional law based on the federal constitution. There is no question about the legality of that or any other deal," KRG government spokesman Khaled Salih said in a statement sent to Reuters by e-mail.

It would be unconstitutional for Baghdad to punish the companies that had signed deals with the semi-autonomous region in the north of Iraq, Salih said.

"How can any serious government official think they are in a position to punish any company working in Iraq legally to contribute to the country's revenue for the benefit of the whole country?," Salih said.

Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said on Monday that deals signed since February were illegal, and warned that the firms involved "will bear the consequences."

Shahristani also said that crude from the deals could not be legally exported, as under the draft oil law only Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) held the right to export.

But Salih said the draft oil law gave no such exclusive right to SOMO.

Salih said that companies with an interest in the Kurdish oil and gas industry were no longer discouraged by Shahristani's statements. Oil majors have to date shown little interest in the Kurdish region, as they fear by alienating Baghdad they may miss out on potentially more lucrative contracts elsewhere in Iraq.

"In the early days people took the statements seriously," Salih said. "Several oil companies informed us about the discouragement and implied threats of doing business in Kurdistan. However, as time passed... it seems to us that people are no longer deterred by such statements from Dr Shahristani."

UPDATE 1-Iraq Kurdish region says new oil deals are legal | Markets | Reuters

Warships' vital role in transfer to Iraq

THE Royal Navy is playing a vital role in protecting Iraq's oil supply as it gradually transfers responsibility to the nation's armed forces.
Portsmouth-based HMS Richmond is currently patrolling the water around Al Basrah Oil Terminal, six miles south of the Iraqi coast.

She is supported in her work by Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Bedivere.

Commanding Officer, Commander Piers Hurrell said: ‘Our primary role is to look after the two oil platforms, they are absolutely crucial to the economic stability and future of the country.

‘It has been particularly busy for the past two months but our challenge is to remain in a ready state to deal with anything, given very short notice.’

The UK’s maritime component commander, Commodore Keith Winstanley added: ‘One of the most significant pieces of a coalition end-state is our ability to transfer responsibility for the defence of the oil platforms and policing of Iraqi territorial waters to the Iraqi Navy.’

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/latest/W...fer.3240798.jp

First Iraq oil reaches Jordan in 4 years

AMMAN, , 28 (UPI) -- The first cargo of oil from Iraq in four years arrived Friday at the Jordanian-Iraqi border, a report said.

Eight trucks brought in the fuel, the first delivery from Iraq since the U.S.-backed coalition invaded the country in March 2003, spokesman Maher al-Shawabekeh said.

Al-Shawabekeh told the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, the current level of 10,000 barrels would be expanded to 100,000.

The fuel, from Kirkuk in Northern Iraq, was proteced by Iraqi tanks on the trip to the border.

United Press International - NewsTrack - Business - First Iraq oil reaches Jordan in 4 years

Is Statoil Getting It Wrong in Iraq?

[English translation of an op-ed originally published in Norwegian in Dagbladet, Oslo, 14 June 2007. As of September 2007, no Statoil office has actually been opened in Arbil.]

Recently announced plans by Statoil to open an office in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdistan federal region in Iraq, raise several critical questions about the company’s ability to gauge the fundamentals of Middle Eastern politics.

It should however be clarified at the outset what this proposed office is really about. Statoil (Norway’s biggest oil company and soon to become even bigger through a merger with Hydro) is not considering signing any kind of exploration deal with Kurdish authorities. Statoil has repeatedly stated that it will not enter into any such deals in the absence of a judicial framework approved by the Iraqi parliament. Moreover, the projected Statoil mission in Arbil would have all of Iraq as its sphere of operation, not only the Kurdish areas. For example, among the components of the plan is a training facility for prospective Iraqi Statoil employees who would be recruited from all parts of the country. In this regard, a key argument in support of Statoil’s choice of location has been the considerable difficulties involved in arranging such training sessions elsewhere: internally in Iraq this would be troublesome due to the security situation; in other countries of the world it is simply proving increasingly difficult for Iraqis to obtain visas.

On all these counts, there are essential differences between Statoil’s plans and the Kurdistan activities of another Norwegian player, the miniscule and privately owned DNO – which openly entered into cooperation with Kurdish authorities prior to the adoption of the Iraqi constitution in October 2005. Nevertheless, there are numerous problematic dimensions to the scheme currently under consideration by Statoil, above all concerning potential side effects in internal Iraqi politics. Regardless of Statoil’s politically correct rhetoric (“an all-Iraqi office which just happens to be located in Arbil due to the security situation”), most Iraqis will interpret any such office as a preparatory step towards investments in the Kurdish areas – which in turn would make Statoil’s office part of the struggle about Iraq’s future state structure that is currently going on in committee charged with revising the 2005 constitution. Currently, the stalemate in the constitutional revision committee concerns the prerogatives of the central government, where the two Kurdish parties are resisting attempts by Shiite and Sunni Arabs to restore a modicum of authority for Baghdad. Lately, Kurdish politicians have protested vociferously against even modest attempts at consolidating the powers of the centre, preferring instead the current constitution which leaves Iraq with one of the weakest federal capitals ever recorded in the annals of political science – unable even to impose taxes and customs, control inland waterways, and administer civil aviation.

In recent years, the Kurdish parties have deliberately worked to improve their bargaining position vis-à-vis Baghdad. They have for instance approached Shiite leaders with the hope of converting them to the idea of a mirror image of Kurdistan in southern Iraq: a Shiistan. So far, their success has been limited. De****e much sensationalism in the Western press about various incarnations of “southern separatism”, on the whole – outside the Green Zone at least – ideals of Iraqi nationalism have proven remarkably resilient among the Shiites. Nevertheless, the overt attempts by Kurdish leaders to push the Shiites into a more pro-federal direction form a considerable problem in the process of Iraqi national reconciliation, because this has encouraged some Shiite leaders to embrace new and radical perspectives on federalism (such as the idea of a single Shiite federal entity) which in turn has led to friction with other Iraqis, Shiites and Sunnis alike, who have more traditional and sceptical attitudes to federalism. Among the symptoms of these ongoing processes are the Kurdish-led efforts seen in the first part of 2007 to define certain oil fields in southern Iraq as “undeveloped” and hence “open to foreign investment” – another reflection of a policy on the part of the Kurdish leaders to seek out potential partners among other Iraqis who may share their preference of a very weak central government. The problem is that many inhabitants in southern Iraq, including many employees in the oil sector, still adhere to the traditional vision of a unitary state with Baghdad as the undisputed capital.

This Kurdish strategy has included a component specifically aimed at Western companies: a deliberate attempt to maximise foreign involvement in the Kurdish areas. This is where Statoil would directly become a player in an internal Iraqi process. Naturally, until now the Kurds have preferred to negotiate for straightforward exploration deals with foreign companies, like the one already signed with DNO. But a Statoil “interest section” in Arbil would serve exactly the same goal: it would highlight the idea of Kurdish autarky, and would enflame tensions by encouraging Kurdish nationalist grandstanding in the ongoing debates about a revised constitution and a package of oil legislation. Statoil would thereby effectively emulate DNO in Iraq: it would create the same negative impact on the ongoing attempts at national reconciliation, even if the company’s spin-doctors have done a somewhat more careful job than their DNO counterparts. “Training components” and security advantages aside, the choice of location for the proposed Statoil office simply is not neutral with regard to the Iraqi constitutional debate. It is conceivable that Statoil may have been persuaded by Kurdish ideas about Kurdistan emerging as “the other [and more secure] Iraq”, but this argument collapses as soon as actual Kurdish behaviour in the ongoing political negotiations is taken into consideration. Increasingly, one gets the impression that Kurdish leaders think they can arrive at a state model in which the only ties with the rest of Iraq would consist of some kind of defence arrangement directed against Turkish incursions, as well as monthly payments to the Kurds from the southern Basra oil fields – estimated to be more than twenty times the size of the Kurdish ones. This kind of maximalist attitude represents a rather utopian approach to federalism, but it nevertheless remains popular in many Kurdish circles.

DNO’s choice to enter into this game must be seen against the backdrop of the small size of the company. But why should a serious player like Statoil do likewise? Cannot the company afford a waiting period in which the Iraqis themselves would decide their future state structure, without interference by foreign investors? Is not Statoil’s management concerned about possible side effects in the wider Arab and Islamic worlds, where much religious extremism is fuelled precisely by conspiracy theories about Western plots to divide and rule Iraq on a sectarian basis?

True, Iraq desperately needs foreign investment today. But first and foremost, the Iraqi attempts to create Iraqi solutions to the country’s political future must be supported. The scenario of state-sponsored Norwegian capitalist interests acting as a destructive force in Iraq’s reconciliation process is a thoroughly shameful one, and should prompt Statoil’s management and the Norwegian foreign ministry to urgently re-examine the whole idea of a Statoil office in Arbil.

Is Statoil Getting It All Wrong in Iraq?

Al-Maliki: Idea to divide Iraq by regions a 'catastrophe'

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday rejected a Senate proposal calling for the decentralization of Iraq's government and giving more control to the country's ethnically divided regions, calling it a "catastrophe."

The measure, whose primary sponsors included presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., calls for Iraq to be divided into federal regions for the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities in a power-sharing agreement similar to Bosnia in the 1990s.

In his first comments since the measure passed Wednesday, al-Maliki strongly rejected the idea, echoing the earlier sentiments of his vice president.

"It is an Iraqi affair dealing with Iraqis," he told The Associated Press while on a return flight to Baghdad after appearing at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "Iraqis are eager for Iraq's unity. ... Dividing Iraq is a problem and a decision like that would be a catastrophe."

Iraq's constitution lays down a federal system, allowing Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north to set up regions with considerable autonomous powers. But Iraq's turmoil has been fueled by the deep divisions among politicians over the details of how it work, including the division of lucrative oil resources.

Many Shiite and Kurdish leaders are eager to implement the provisions. But the Sunni Arab minority fears being left in an impoverished central zone without resources. Others fear a sectarian split-up would harden the violent divisions among Iraq's fractious ethnic and religious groups.
On Thursday, Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said decisions about Iraq must remain in the hands of its citizens and the spokesman for the supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed.

"We demand the Iraqi government to stand against such project and to condemn it officially," Liwa Semeism told the AP. "Such a decision does not represent the aspirations of all Iraqi people and it is considered an interference in Iraq's internal affairs."

A spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shiite spiritual leader, dismissed the proposal during Friday prayers in Karbala.

"The division plan is against Iraqi's interests and against peaceful living in one united Iraq," Sheik Abdul Mahdi al Karbalaei told worshippers. "Any neighboring country supporting this project will pay the price of instability in the region."

Al-Maliki said he discussed the role of U.S. troops and private security contractors in the country, stressing that Iraq is a sovereign nation and it should have control over its own security.

Security "is something related to Iraq's sovereignty and its independence and it should not be violated," he said.

Al-Maliki's comments follow a Sept. 16 shooting in central Baghdad that killed 11 Iraqi civilians allegedly at the hands of Blackwater USA guards providing security for U.S. diplomats.

The Moyock, N.C.-based company said its employees were acting in self-defense against an attack by armed insurgents. Iraqi officials and witnesses have said the guards opened fire randomly, killing a woman and an infant along with nine other people, but details have widely diverged.

Al-Maliki: Idea to divide Iraq by regions a 'catastrophe' - USATODAY.com

A senior Al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq: US military

A senior leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed in a US air strike in Iraq this week, a US military commander said Friday, calling it a key loss to the group's inner circle of foreign fighters.

Brigadier General Joseph Anderson identified the man as Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian described as a close associate and likely successor to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Al-Qaeda in Iraq's Egyptian leader.

"Abu Usama al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders within Al-Qaeda in Iraq," Anderson said.

Anderson, who is chief of staff of the Multi-National Corp Iraq, said Tunisi was killed September 25 in an air strike that followed a series of raids that had netted other associates.

The US military learned that he was meeting with other Al-Qaeda in Iraq members southwest of Baghdad in the vicinity of Musayyib.
"United States Air Force F-16 aircraft attacked the target," Anderson told reporters here via video linkup from Baghdad.

"Reporting indicated that several Al-Qaeda members with ties to senior leadership were present at that time. Three were killed, including Tunisi," he said.

"His presence was confirmed by one of the two detainees from the operation, one who left the target area just prior to the air strike, who we eventually captured minutes later," he said.

An aerial video of the bombing shown to reporters at the Pentagon indicated that the target was a cluster of buildings in what appeared to be a rural area.

Ground forces recovered a handwritten note at the site that was believed to have been written by Tunisi, Anderson said, displaying a slide with photographs of the note.

"The key points in this hand-written note include, he's surrounded, communications have been cut and he's desperate for help," he said.

Anderson said Tunisi oversaw the movement of foreign fighters in Iraq and hooked them up with cells launching suicide attacks and car bombings in the Baghdad area.

He said that in his cell also was responsible for the kidnapping of US soldiers in 2006, but provided no other detail.

"He was the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and, as I stated, part of the inner leadership circle of Al Qaeda in Iraq who had direct contact with Abu Ayyub al-Masri," Anderson said.

A senior Al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq: US military - Yahoo! News UK