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

Iran-Iraq First Economic Seminar and Exhibition

TEHRAN, Sep. 01 (ISNA)-The first Iran-Iraq economic seminar and exhibition is to be held in mid-September.

The purpose of this seminar and exhibition is identifying and introducing the abilities of the two sides in the fields of industry and finance.

In this seminar Iraq's current situation and needs will be clarified so to prepare the field for further private and governmental economy cooperation.

In this seminar the two sides will also discuss the economy cooperation charter between the two countries neighboring provinces.

Iraq with a high potential market is a good place to be planned for more serious participation in its fundamental reconstructing projects.

Iranian contractors will soon be seriously involved in Iraq's oil refinery projects as investors.

Iran and Iraq also signed an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil and oil products.

http://www.isna.ir/Main/NewsView.asp...-989396&Lang=E

Originally Posted by dinartank

This isnt news but Im just curious does anyone know if the budget was ever implemnted? I remember in the beginng of the year it was set and agreed upon the amount of dinars to be used in a year for all the sectors of the economy, but they never offically enacted upon to use it. Do I stand correct? Tank

If I remember correctly Tank it was left that the ministries who haven't implemented 25% of their budgets by July would have it transferred over to other ministries capable of implementing it. I imagine with all the boycotting and confusion going on right now it might be difficult to determine what ministries have done that.

Lack of legal framework keeps oil investors out of Iraq

September 2, 2007

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Iraqi government officials and energy experts presented detailed plans for exploiting the wartorn country's vast petroleum wealth but admitted that the absence of a law regulating the industry is a bigger obstacle than security to attracting foreign investment.

Government officials at the three-day "Iraq Oil, Gas, Petrochemicals and Electricity Summit" held in Dubai tempered their grandiose projects for exploiting the country's massive oil reserves by admitting that the vital, but contentious, law still needed to be passed.

"Security is not stopping investors coming to Iraq, (it is because) they have no laws to protect their investment," Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, told the Associated Press at the start of the conference.

After months of acrimonious debate, a new draft oil law will be discussed in parliament in the coming weeks, which al-Dabbagh hoped would be adopted by the end of the month.

"The majority of politicians are aware that we cannot go on without it," he said. "The oil law is the future of Iraq."

De****e being some of the largest in the world, Iraq's oil reserves are also some of the least exploited with the worst infrastructure — something Iraq is hoping foreign investors can change.

Talks have been held with Shell, Texaco and Dow Chemical companies on possible investments in various proposed projects, said Fawzi al-Hariri, Iraq's Minister of Industry and Minerals. He said the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation has also expressed interest.

Al-Hariri hoped that the negotiations would be concluded by the end of the year.

He described a plan for a US$120 million (€87.56 million) upgrade of a Basra petrochemical plant, that could be developed further with another US$1 billion (€0.75 billion).

"We are also considering a second, completely new facility, maybe in the north or central region," he told Dow Jones Newswires at the conference, putting the cost at over US$2 billion (€1.5 billion).

He said that the plant's final location would depend on the security situation.

Even more than new projects, however, it is the country's creaking oil infrastructure that has to be fixed, preferably with foreign investment, said Thamir Ghadban, chairman of Iraq Oil Commission.

Several times over the last three decades, complete overhauls were planned only to be shelved as the country was wracked by devastating wars and then U.N. sanctions.

"We think Iraq needs to bring up the oil production, but it also needs to go into oil exploration," Ghadban said, adding that the government plans to "convert 25 to 30 percent of probable reserves into proven reserves. "

If it succeeds, Iraq could raise production to 6 million of barrels of oil a day, up from an average of around 2 million barrels.

"Four million with national efforts and additional two million in cooperation with foreign oil companies," Ghadban said.

The country's former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Olom, called for additional domestic involvement in the sector as well, stressing the need for a "balance between national and foreign investment."

"Iraqis deserve a better standard of living," al-Olom said. "The only way they will get it, is by developing oil and gas resources."

Lack of legal framework keeps oil investors out of Iraq - International Herald Tribune

AL chief calls for Iranian-Arab talks on Iraq

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa called Sunday for a top level Arab-Iranian dialogue concerning the security situation in Iraq in order to help the fellow Arab country.

Reacting to recent Iranian statements on filling the security vacuum in Iraq after the pullout of the U.S. army, Moussa said that the issue would not be easy and might create several problems.

An Arab-Iranian dialogue must be held if the U.S. army decided to pull out from Iraq, said the Arab official, stressing that the regional talks must be commenced to the save the region.

"Will Iran send 150,000 soldiers to Iraq in order to fill the security gap? ... That would be unimaginable and very difficult to execute," he wondered.

The solution would be in an Arab-Iranian understanding and cooperation, Moussa said, pointing out that sharing similar positions on the issue, both parties could help Iraq achieve peace and stability.

Moussa indicated that the league would partake in the upcoming top-level meeting of Iraq's neighbors in Baghdad, affirming that his league would focus during the meeting on reinforcing Iraq national reconciliation plan.

A Syrian proposal for supporting Iraq refugees in their host countries would be highlighted during the next meeting of Arab foreign ministers, said the secretary general.

On the shape of government in Palestine, Moussa revealed that the most important issue at present was to concentrate on building the Palestinian independent state rather than the shape of the government.

AL chief calls for Iranian-Arab talks on Iraq | Iraq Updates

Maliki: Reconciliation supported improving security

PM Noori Maliki confirmed that Govt.'s strategy of strengthening the national reconciliation led to improving the security situation in Baghdad and other provinces and while he warned of plans aim to return Ba'athists to power and pushing him to resign from the Govt., he stressed on that everyone attempts to topple the Govt. his fate would be failure.

Maliki added at his meet with delegation of Shabak's Sunni and Shiite that terrorism doesn’t target specific social group or nationality but targets all Iraqis because excommunication statements and fatwas which issued by some ****eful groups and figures against new democratic Iraq.

Maliki: Reconciliation supported improving security | Iraq Updates

Careful praising of security agreement with US

MPs' opinions varied about the security agreement which to be signed between Iraq and US.

While some MPs confirmed at press interviews that the agreement would be positive and serves Iraqi people's interest others thought that its should be studied by presidential committees, while third side focused on its unimportance.

Adnan Dulaimi, head of consensus front, said that statements of FM Hoshear Zebari about intention to sign long term security agreements with American side show will to stabilize Iraq, and the front thought that signing such agreements with other countries step to right direction.

Careful praising of security agreement with US | Iraq Updates

Dose Sovereignty matter?
On the bombardment of Kurdish borders
02 September 2007 (KurdishMedia)

It’s one of the long-lasting paradigms operating within International (Law, Politics and Relations). Yet, ‘sovereignty’ like many other paradigms of modernity has been vulnerable to various, sometimes, conflicting articulations and/or manipulations. This reality has been more evident in the particular context where, Kurds and the Kurdish question are at stake.

Historically, international society has always been insensitive to the Kurdish aspirations for self-determination (even in its narrowest sense); this is for the most part, if not solely under the rubric of reserving the sovereignty of so-called nation-states to which, the Kurds sanctioned to belong. With the same token, the dominant international rhetoric has, since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, been articulating the Kurdish statehood as impossible, depicting it as an assault on sovereignty of the regional states. Ironically, at many occasions, the same paradigm has seemed to be of no significance, neither to the regional states nor to the international society, and more importantly to its hegemonic actor, America. Under, pretexts such as regional stability, shared security concerns, combating terrorism and no to mention regime change as in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the same taken-for granted paradigm has been neglected and undermined.

Iraqi-Kurdistan is now experiencing a continuous assault perpetuated by at least two other (sovereign) states namely (Iran and turkey). The simultaneous assaults by the tow states are by no means a matter of coincidence. There is also, no need for any kind of conspiracy articulation in this regard. Taking the long history of regional cooperation among both and other states in which the Kurds reside; cooperations characterised by shared culture of nationalist exclusion and denial of the Kurdish culture and identity; such assaults and many other forms of military operation have taken place, all which have had one thing in common: opposing Kurdish struggle for self-determination and/or cultural and political rights. This is an incommensurable paradox surrounding the taken for granted paradigm of sovereignty. While denying the Kurds( with other stateless nations), the equal right of self-determination, for it going against sovereignty of the pre-existing states; ironically and at the meantime, granting those same states, rights, not only exceeding the legal, political and moral boundaries of sovereignty, but also undermining it and rendering it of no significant. In other words, it’s the double standard irony, operating through the existing state of affairs in the international practice. Bombing of border areas of Kurdistan by the tow countries, and disturbing the most stable area in the troublesome Iraq, again ironically, an area belongs to supposedly an’ ally in the war on terror’,’ or’ the good Kurds’ in Michael Gunter’s terms. all that at a time when the country is factually under American mandate and occupation. If it’s partly, but crucially correlated to the quagmire in which American trapped; it dose to a considerable degree fit the American foreign policy doctrine, as it is inherently contentious and particularly indifferent to the Kurds question as a whole.

No doubt, the very existence of American presence in Iraq is highly controversial by the same token discussed above (breaching sovereignty of other states), meanwhile, accepting the overall rhetoric surrounding their role in the country, one could find no place for any other alternative perception explaining America’s silence, even approval and justification (implicitly in the Turkey’s case) towards and for outrageous assaults being carried out by both Turkey and Iran. Confronting this contradictory American stance and international inaction, one could set forth a seemingly outrageous question before an international order which ‘sovereignty’ makes on of its immutable poles; a question which could be articulated as such: dose sovereignty matter?

Is it the unlucky geographical space of the Kurds which making them’ perennial victims of history’ in Kissinger’s expression? or it’s the discriminatory, double standarded and interest-driven nature of American foreign policy doctrine, which gives no attention to assaults on sovereignty of an actual state, as along as it is taking place in a space where the Kurds reside.

Dose Sovereignty matter? | Iraq Updates

Govt. praises Sadr's attitude

Interior Ministry declared that more than 300 suspected face investigations about events which happened during religious celebrations in Karbala last week while information refer to involve terrorists through advance plans to disturb the visit and creating security unrests helped by default of some security commanders in Karbala whom held answerable legally.

Meanwhile, management of two holy shrines declared opening the shrines before prayers.

Govt. praises Sadr's attitude | Iraq Updates

3 phases' plan to form wide national front

Govt. considers activating last agreement among political leaders at the head of its new political plan which represented by three phases applied at the same time to motivate the political process and forming wide front ageing on national project aims to solve recent situations.

The plan includes besides strengthening what was called "fivefold declaration", work towards achieving consensuses about laws and alliances as fourfold alliance and carrying out comprehensive and fast political reform of state institutions, Hameed Ma'ala, leader in supreme council and MP said.

3 phases' plan to form wide national front | Iraq Updates

British troops quitting Basra city in Iraq

BASRA (Reuters) - British troops were quitting the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Sunday night in another step towards handing over the province to Iraqi control and paving the way for an eventual withdrawal of British forces from Iraq.

A British Ministry of Defence source in London said troops were pulling out of Basra Palace, which was built for Saddam Hussein, in the city centre and withdrawing to the vast British airbase on the outskirts of the city.
"The troops are coming out," the source said.

British military officials in Basra declined to comment but a source at the Iraqi Ministry of Defence in the city said Iraqi troops were now inside the palace.

One Reuters witness said he could see helicopters taking off and landing at the palace.

The withdrawal means the end of a British presence in the volatile city for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It is part of plans to transfer security control of Basra province, expected before the end of the year.

The Sunday Times reported on Sunday that Britain was preparing to hand over control of Basra province to the Iraqi army as early as next month.
British forces, however, will remain in an "overwatch role" and continue training Iraqi security forces as well as guard key land supply routes from neighbouring Kuwait. Britain has already handed over three other provinces in southern Iraq.

Some 500 troops had been based at the palace, which was bombarded daily by mortar and rocket fire.

The withdrawal from the palace will lead to the reduction in the number of British soldiers in Iraq to about 5,000. All are based at the airbase, which is also attacked daily.

Attacks on British troops by Shi'ite militias have surged -- 41 British soldiers have been killed in southern Iraq this year, the highest number of casualties suffered by the British since the first year of the war.

Basra, Iraq's second largest city, is strategically vital as the hub of southern oil fields that produce nearly all of the government's revenue, and the centre of imports and exports through the Gulf.

It has witnessed a turf war between rival Shi'ite groups, including supporters of fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and smaller Fadhila party, mainly for political supremacy and control of illegal oil traffic.

While residents say there is now a fragile calm between the rival groups, there are fears that the British withdrawal will be accompanied by an upsurge in factional violence.

CIVIL WAR

In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki responded to critics in the U.S. Congress, saying his government had kept Iraq from plunging into sectarian civil war.

Maliki told a news conference his critics had crossed what he called a "reasonable line" and were encouraging militants trying to destabilise Iraq.

Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton and other U.S. lawmakers have called for Iraq's parliament to replace Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist.

"They do not realise the size of the disaster that Iraq has passed through and the big role of this government, a government of national unity. The most important achievement is it stopped a sectarian and civil war," Maliki said.

His comments came just over a week before U.S. President George W. Bush's top officials in Iraq present pivotal reports on the country's security and political situation.

Maliki said he did not want to prejudge the testimony by U.S. commander, General David Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, which is to be delivered to Congress on September 10.

He is under mounting pressure from officials in Washington to show progress towards reconciling warring majority Shi'ite Muslims and minority Sunni Arabs.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine in the town of Samarra in February 2006 unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed that pushed the country to the brink of all-out civil war.

Democrats in Congress have criticised Bush's Iraq policy and along with some senior Republicans have called for U.S. troops to begin pulling out as soon as possible.

British troops quitting Basra city in Iraq - Yahoo! News UK