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Anatolia: Turkey pleased with draft final declaration of Iraq conference

Turkey is pleased with a draft final declaration which is supposed to end the International Conference on Iraq to be held in Istanbul on Saturday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

The draft, which was prepared by high-level officials of the participating countries on Friday, assesses the terrorism issue pursuant to Turkey's expectations, diplomatic sources were quoted as saying.

The document includes issues such as elimination of terrorists and terrorism in Iraq, stopping terrorism directed from Iraq and not allowing the usage of Iraqi territory for terrorist activities targeting neighboring countries, according to Anatolia.

Meanwhile, the draft declaration also gives UN a key role regarding the solution of conflicts between the groups in Iraq, said the sources.

Earlier, Turkey Daily Newspaper reported on its website that a focus on terror and terror-related messages will constitute the most critical part of the final communique ending the Istanbul conference on Iraq.

According to the paper, three out of 21 articles in the draft of the document will focus on the fight against terror, according to which the Iraqi government would be pressured to cooperate with Turkey in clamping down upon the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK),labeled by the United states and the European Union as a terrorist organization.

The draft also asks Iraq to establish efficient mechanisms with its neighbors to prevent any cross-border terrorist acts, while calling for their cooperation on controlling their common borders and hindering any terrorist infiltrations of those borders.

Anatolia: Turkey pleased with draft final declaration of Iraq conference

U.S. OK’s Saddam oil law for today’s oil dealsSyria wants to process Iraq oil — Iraqi gas to power Europe — Target: President Talabani »
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Iraq oil, below the volatile south and north strife
Published at November 1, 2007 in News Feed and Uncategorized.
Plus:

The most underrated powder keg in Iraq is located in the south — away from Baghdad’s political beef and the Turkish invasion of Iraq’s northern front — where 80 percent of Iraq’s proven oil reserves are located.

Political factions, their militias and other gangs entrenched in a power struggle over the oil resources and the crude and fuel black market, are angling for Basra. The oil capital is where nearly all of Iraq’s exports flow through.

The British are pulling back and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says Iraqi security forces can take over by December, though a top official in Basra says otherwise.

Iraqi police busted 267 people who entered Basra illegally, Azzaman reports.

But on the Gulf coast, at the oil terminals, armed Iraqis, under Australian and British training, say they’re ready to protect the lifeline of Iraq, Mohammed Abbas reports for Reuters.

Iraqi soldiers aboard the patrol boat scan the waters around them before they give permission to U.S. sailors to approach the Gulf oil terminal.

For the first time since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein more than four years ago, Iraqi soldiers are taking charge of protecting the country’s greatest assets against insurgents under a plan to hand over control to Iraqis.

“The Iraqis are doing the job,” said Australian Captain Philip Spedding, who manages coalition Northern Gulf operations. “They’re the ones manning the gun positions and the radar, talking on the radio. It’s close to transition point on the terminals.”

Iraq’s southern oil fields and export facilities have largely escaped the kind of insurgent attacks that had regularly hit pipelines and oil installations in other parts of Iraq.

But Iraqis guarding the two terminals point to neighbouring states and saboteurs as potential threats. An armed Iranian lookout post is visible from one of the terminals.

Rival Shi’ite militias are vying for control of oil exports in southern Iraq, which contains the otherwise landlocked country’s only access to the sea, as British troop gradually hand over control to Iraqis. Sailors from U.S.-allied countries have been training Iraqis since soon after the 2003 invasion, in an effort to rebuild a navy devastated by sanctions and wars.

They said training was beginning to pay off.

Iraq’s Oil
Former Iraq Oil Minister Issam Chalabi sits down with CNN’s John Defterios in London.

In case you missed it: my report for UPI that the U.S. State Department says signing national oil deals using the Saddam-era law is OK.

The new position is a shift for the U.S. government, or at least a nuance in its stance, which has pressed hard for a new hydrocarbons legal regime and condemned deals signed between a regional government and private firms — especially when it’s an American company.

“We would prefer these laws to be passed before any deals are signed,” Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Lawrence Butler told United Press International. “However, in the absence of passage of the hydrocarbon law, Iraq as a sovereign state can continue to use the Saddam-era laws to manage the sector in the meantime.”

It’s not clear what effect the U.S. stance will have on the international oil industry, salivating at the prospect of entering the third-largest oil reserves in the world, as Iraq’s Oil Ministry says it will not wait forever for a new law before signing deals.

Syria Plans $3 Billion Refinery to Process Iraqi Oil (Update1)

By Maher Chmaytelli

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Syria plans to build a $3 billion oil refinery with a Kuwaiti partner, part of an effort to more than double the country's capacity and process crude oil from neighboring Iraq, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian al-Alao said.

Noor Financial Investment, a Kuwait-based investment firm, will announce on Nov. 5 the creation of a company to build the plant in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, the second new Syrian refinery announced in a week. The country wants to reduce imports of oil products such as gasoil, al-Alao said yesterday in an interview in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

The new refineries will eventually allow Syria to import, process and export Iraqi crude, offsetting its own declining supply. Iraq's oil exports through Syria, which had contravened United Nations sanctions, stopped in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Noor and Syrian partners will offer shares in the company to the public and to Syrian expatriates, the minister said.

State companies from Venezuela, Iran and Syria and a Malaysian private company announced plans this week to build a refinery near Homs, in central Syria. The $2.6 billion plant, to be completed in four years, will process crude oil from Venezuela, Iran and Syria, al-Alao said.

Middle Eastern nations, including Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil producer, have announced plans to add refining capacity as a global shortage of such plants contributes to surging fuel prices. Crude oil reached a record $94.46 a barrel yesterday in New York. ...{snipe..}

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Arabs set to supply EU with gas next year

CAIRO: Arab countries including Egypt and Iraq will supply natural gas to Europe through a pipeline by the end of next year, Arab and European officials said yesterday. Arab officials said the final phase of the project, linking the Syrian gas network with Turkey, will begin on November 17 in northern Syrian city of Aleppo and last about 15 months.

"The Arab gas pipeline will be ready to pump gas to the EU by the end of 2008," Iraq's Assistant Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Al Hakim said.

Hakim and other Arab ministers held talks with EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner during an energy security conference which brought together officials from the EU, Africa, Middle East in Sharm El-Sheikh.

Ferrero-Waldner described the news as "a new era" for natural gas. She said the gas would be pumped through Jordan, Syria and "maybe Iraq" to Turkey and then into Europe.

"We have started discussions with the Iraqis to link an Iraqi gas field near the Syrian border to the Arab pipeline," Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Alao said.

Iraq joined the Arab Gas Pipeline Agreement in 2004 but has not so far been an active member.

Egyptian Oil Minister Sameh Fahmy said the Arab countries need European support to finance the final phases of the project through loans with long grace periods and low interest rates.

Ferrero-Waldner said Arab gas could reach Europe possibly through the 3,300km Nabucco pipeline that passes via Turkey and the Balkans to Austria.

So far the five signatory countries to the 4.6 billion euro ($6.6bn) Nabucco pipeline - Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria - have not secured any gas, which analysts said would make it difficult to raise the necessary funds.

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In key Iraqi area, US starts pulling back

Tikrit, Iraq, AND Washington - The end of the US surge is in sight here. In two key central Iraqi provinces, American units will soon reduce their forces and modify their role in a region that is a microcosm of the fractured nation. There are Sunnis and Shiites in this Baathist heartland. Al Qaeda fighters have fled here from Anbar Province. This region is home to one of Iraq's three major oil refineries.

It's a risky move, both US and Iraqi officials say, but a necessary test of the strength and ability of Iraqi security forces.

The US is pulling out one of its brigades (about 3,500 soldiers) in December without replacing it. As the Americans leave, the US plans to give Iraqis more responsibility, an overall strategy the US will employ as it pulls out five brigades – the bulk of the surge forces – by next summer.

"Are they ready to go it alone? No. We understand that," says one senior US Defense official. "But if you keep them in spring practice, they will never gain confidence."

The region includes Diyala and Salahaddin provinces, which have large Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish populations. Salahaddin's capital, Tikrit, is Saddam Hussein's hometown, and residual support for the deceased dictator can be seen spray painted on walls throughout the city ("Long live the hero Saddam").

US plans for the area remain intentionally murky, and commanders say they may send another US unit to the area if they need to as they redraw the boundary lines that define areas of responsibility for their units there.

In the meantime, the Iraqis will still have the help of an American unit on standby. As the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division, deployed to Diyala Province, returns home, the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Division, a "surge" unit already deployed nearby, will assume a greater swath of territory for now.

Such transfer of responsibility is already playing out in places like Anbar Province, where Marines are turning over areas to the Iraqis but maintain the ability to assist them on operations if necessary. But the relative homogeneity of Anbar, a former hotbed of the Sunni insurgency, helped efforts there to improve security. Diyala, by contrast, hosts both Sunni extremists and Shiite militias, while in Salahaddin, which is 90 percent Sunni Arab, bitter tribal divisions, loyalties to Mr. Hussein, and deep mistrust of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad complicates the picture.

De****e the challenges, Iraqi forces will have to rise to the challenge, says Anthony Cordesman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.

"Forces are never ready," he says, adding that it will be tougher for Iraqi forces there since the region north of Baghdad does not offer the same simple security solutions as those found in Anbar. "You never become ready until the trade-off of responsibility."

US commanders north of Baghdad are wary about publicizing that there will be fewer forces in the region, even though, under Army Gen. David Petraeus's plan, announced earlier this year in Washington, the US will reduce surge forces by as many as 20,000 by summer.

The outgoing senior US commander there told reporters at the Pentagon last week that there would be a net loss of a brigade headquarters – equivalent to about three battalions.

"After it is all said and done, and the dust settles, I will have a little less force," says Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multinational Division-North. General Mixon's 15-month tour just ended.

On Sunday, during a change-of-command ceremony to his successor, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, Mixon told Iraqi military and provincial officials present in the audience that it was their turn.

"Lead the people of your province to put aside sectarian and tribal differences," Mixon said. "Ultimately, it's up to the Iraqi people to secure their freedom and prosperity."

The Iraqis seem ready, even if they are still shaky, as a recent operation illustrated. And militants have infiltrated both the Army and the police and continue to tip off insurgents to imminent operations, say US officers.

On Tuesday, for example, about 450 Iraqi soldiers and policemen and 60 US soldiers, backed by heavy US air support, made their way to villages in the remote northeastern corner of Salahaddin.

They carried a list of 12 militant-cell leaders they hoped to capture. But when they got there, all they found were women and children: no militants.

In one case, a woman was questioned about the whereabouts of her sons. She told an Iraqi police officer that they had gone fishing and would be back in two weeks. But after the Iraqi unit found two mortar launchers in her home, she admitted militants had just been in her village and that they executed 20 people and terrorized the village. She said that there was nothing she could do.

The Iraqi officer was not impressed. "Say hello to your sons and tell them sooner or later we will get them," he told her, adding, "Why do you have these weapons in your home?"

"To hunt policemen," quipped another officer standing nearby.
The woman told him not to say such things. "A person who has not done anything is not afraid," she said, standing outside her mud-brick hut as her two tearful daughters and wheelchair-bound son sat nearby.

The Iraqi police officers threatened to take away her handicapped son unless she confessed to the whereabouts of her other sons.

Ultimately, they left the one son alone but rounded up all the military-age men they could find in the village and nearby villages that had been on their target lists. They detained 39 men in total for questioning, but none of the ones on their list.

Army Lt. Col. David Hsu, who leads the US Army team advising the Iraqis and accompanied them that day, says it's very conceivable that the people on the wanted list were tipped off by Iraqi soldiers. "It's a huge concern," he says. "There are elements in Army, police, and [concerned local citizens] that work with insurgents."

"Concerned local citizens" is a catch-all phrase that US forces use to describe tribal leaders and civilians who may have previously sympathized with insurgents or collaborated with them but have now declared their support for US and Iraqi forces.

Yet, the commanders of many of these units know better, he says, and they will endure much from their men – but not that. "He will put up with lying, cheating, and stealing by his men," Colonel Hsu says, "as long as they are not aiding and abetting the insurgents."

Ultimately, the Iraqi forces are competent, Hsu says, even if their operational planning is limited. He says that the US must hand over more duties to Iraqis.

Although there are challenges now, he adds, it will pay off in the long run to give them more control.

In key Iraqi area, US starts pulling back | csmonitor.com