-
Oslo Stock Exchange declared that there is no problem between them and the Kurdistan Regional Government
Oslo Stock Exchange announced that it has met with a representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government to clarify the circumstances of the altercation between the Exchange and De. That. Or the Norwegian oil production on a package of shares in 2008 with the Government of the province.
The E.xecutive Director of the Oslo Stock Exchange showed a Andsnet in a press statement made by after the meeting and quoted by PUKmedia Friday he Nothingness any problems with the Kurdistan Regional Government and they were not at any time the subject of investigations by the exchange.
She added that this is an issue between the DVD. That. Or as a company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange itself, pointing out that the meeting was mutually beneficial.
Indicated Andsnet no intention to boycott the company's stock as a good company in Norway, hoping to increase cooperation between them.
http://radionawa.com/ar/NewsDetailN....8192&LinkID=99
-
President Barzani tasks Barham Salih to form new Government
Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani formally charged Dr Barham Salih to form the next Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) at a ceremony in Salahaddin.
”Today I appoint you to officially form the government and I hope that you will consult with all the political parties in Kurdistan to form a broad-based government,” President Barzani said at today’s ceremony in Salahaddin.
The President also said, “We are proud and thankful for the previous government for their work” and hoped that the new government would complement and carry on the work of the previous one.
Dr Barham Salih, the new KRG Prime Minister will head the sixth cabinet since 1992. Mr Azad Barwari takes the post of deputy Prime Minister in the new government.
In presidential and parliamentary elections held in July in the Kurdistan Region, the Kurdistan List representing the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) won around 60 percent of the popular vote. Dr Barham Salih is a prominent member of the PUK and was formerly Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, while Azad Barwari is a senior member of the KDP.
http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...13637&Itemid=1
-
Kurdistan rocked by oil revelation
Embarrassing claims highlight the Kurdish government's lack of transparency and slow progress in combating corruption
After electing a new prime minister last month, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraq's Kurds are preparing themselves for a new era of politics. The success of the opposition party, Change, and its penetration of the two-party dominance of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP) means that accountability could be arriving in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The countless challenges that lie ahead for the PUK-KDP-dominated coalition government include endemic corruption, unsatisfactory services and unemployment. Beyond the Kurdish borders, Iraqi politics continues to stagnate, with the KRG and the federal government in Baghdad still yet to reach a compromise over key outstanding issues like disputed territories and the hydrocarbons law.
To compound its problems even further, the PUK-KDP coalition now finds itself embroiled in an embarrassing tripartite conflict with Norwegian oil company DNO International and the Oslo stock exchange (OSE).
DNO is one of many foreign oil companies that have signed contracts with the KRG to develop oilfields under production-sharing agreements that give companies a stake in the crude they produce. Baghdad has rendered these illegal but nevertheless, back in May, it approved exports for two Kurdish oilfields, including the DNO-controlled Tawki field.
However, DNO operations have been suspended by the KRG as a result of a Norwegian regulatory investigation into the sale of $30m-worth of DNO shares. Material published by the Oslo stock exchange suggests that the KRG acted as a middleman for the transaction of those shares to Turkish oil firm Genel Enerji – another explorer operating in the region – but through the use of a clearing account registered to KRG natural resources minister Ashti Hawrami. That the deal was brokered through a personal account has led to intense media speculation that illicit personal gain could have been involved in the transaction – something the KRG strenuously denies.
The KRG maintains the transaction was facilitated with the intention of assisting DNO to fund its projects in the region. It has lambasted the OSE for implying that Hawrami benefited personally and has penalised DNO by suspending its operations for six weeks. Although the KRG could have simply advanced the funds to Genel, it states that it was "easier to just purchase the shares". DNO's competitors stand to gain from the dispute if no resolution is reached.
This episode will do little to instil confidence in already hesitant investors wary of pouring their cash into what evidently is a climate of uncertainty that lacks the necessary and reassuring regulatory and legal frameworks. Companies like DNO and Genel Enerji, among others, are still yet to be paid for their exports since June as a result of the KRG-Baghdad dispute over the management and control of the country's resources.
Baghdad will certainly crow over the dispute with satisfaction, and an Iraqi MP has already called for a committee to investigate the possibility of unlawful involvement by Hawrami. The KRG, in its failure to exercise professional competency, for example, by using a personal account for the share transaction, has handed Baghdad a gift and strengthened its attempts to curtail Kurdish autonomy over the energy sector. The Iraqi oil ministry already blacklists companies that circumvent the federal government and sign contracts with the KRG independently.
The KRG has fallen victim to its own shortcomings in the same way Iraq's Kurds have in general. Its share purchase may have been an innocent one but it was, nonetheless, secret. The lack of transparency and slow progress in combating corruption means that in this instance a disenchanted population will point its fingers at government officials irrespective of culpability or complicity in what is already a political and socio-economic environment largely dominated by party patronage.
The opposition party, Change, will welcome the disclosures. Now that it has evidence that points to potential malpractice it will use the affair to make more credible its charges of improper dealings within the upper echelons of the KDP-PUK coalition. Having campaigned on exactly this sort of impropriety in the July parliamentary elections, and with national elections approaching in January, it will seek to capitalise and turn the protest votes it won into its own (should it contest the elections independently). The January national elections could represent yet another turning point in Kurdish politics.
Barham Salih, the new prime minister, therefore has his work cut out – the "oil scandal" could not have come at a worse time for him. In addition to convincing the electorate that the KDP and PUK will reform and deliver, and actually carrying out the necessary reforms, the future of the PUK, which is on the brink of being marginalised, also rests on his shoulders.
As a first step towards greater transparency in the public-state relationship, Salih has already enforced measures that require all government officials to declare their financial interests and assets, a bold move given the intense scrutiny the new government could now undergo. Salih is not one to miss an opportunity to enter the history books, though time will tell whether it will be for the right reasons
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ish-government
-
Norwegian oil company reinstated in Iraq
DNO International ASA, a Norwegian oil company, announced Tuesday that Kurdish authorities have agreed to let it resume operations in the self-governed Iraqi region following a two-week suspension.
DNO said in a statement that "all issues" with Kurdish oil officials "have now been resolved."
The statement includes a letter from Kurdish Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami, dated Oct. 5, which states that "all DNO's rights are hereby (reinstated) with immediate effect. DNO can resume the role of the operator as before and without any restrictions."
The suspension stemmed from a regulatory probe by the Oslo Stock Exchange into whether a 2008 DNO deal with Turkey's Genel Enerj had followed public disclosure laws. A statement issued by the exchange in September implied that Hawrami had acted as a middleman in the deal.
The Kurdish regional government reacted strongly to the statement and suspended DNO's Kurdish operations on Sept. 21, claiming DNO had provided the stock exchange with misleading information about Hawrami's role, who the government said acted only "in his official capacity as minister."
At that time, Kurdish officials gave DNO six weeks "to remedy to our full satisfaction the damage done" to the regional government's reputation or risk the possible "termination of DNO's involvement in the Kurdistan region with or without compensation."
A series of meetings between DNO and Kurdish officials, as well as a Sept. 28 note of clarification from the Oslo Stock Exchange, appeared to have resolved the situation.
In a letter sent Monday to Kurdish officials, DNO stated that the regional government was not part of the stock exchange's probe, and that "some elements of the press are inventing stories with the view to damaging the reputation and integrity of Dr. Hawrami." The letter was included in Tuesday's statement.
The reply from Hawrami, also dated Oct. 5, called the issues arising from the regulatory probe "unfortunate internal disagreements" with the Oslo Stock Exchange, which "were exploited by the media beyond DNO's control."
http://www.boston.com/business/artic...tated_in_iraq/
-
KRG has no relation with dispute between Company and Oslo Stock Exchange: DNO
Chairmen of Board of Directors of DNO International ASA in Norwegian Berge Gerdtlarsen has sent a letter to the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani to express his regret for the harm and difficulties caused to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and to Dr. Ashti Hawrami, the minister of natural resources in particular, as a result of DNO’s internal disagreement with the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE)".
“Kurdistan Regional Government is not, and has never been, under any investigation by the OSE in relation to this issue. This has recently been confirmed by the OSE itself in their official statement dated 28th September 2009, in which the OSE stressed that the exchange doesn’t have any issue with the KRG and that the KRG has not any time been the subject of investigation by the exchange”, DNO Chairmen of the Board added in his letter
http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...13843&Itemid=1
-
Barzani: oil and gas region, "King of the Kurdish people"
Prime KRG outgoing Barzani that the oil contracts signed by the regional government "safe and legal" noting that the regional parliamentary committee informed of all relevant content, he said.
Barzani noted that the Government of the Territory "nothing to do with" differences between the department's DNA or the Norwegian oil and the Bank (HSBC) on the sale of the company's shares to a company synonymous Turkey.
The Barzani's oil policy of the Government of the Territory to the heads of local newspapers said Wednesday, noting that "oil and gas in the region belongs to the people of Kurdistan and no one can act in them personally," noting that "the Iraqi constitution passed to the territorial Government to sign the oil contracts, and this contracts were with the knowledge and consent of the committee of the Kurdistan National Assembly are identical with the law and the Constitution. "
The head of the outgoing government that "policy successful step for the Government of the Territory in the field of oil disturbs some of the parties, which prompts them to launch public information campaigns designed to put suspicious obstacles to that policy," he described.
The Government of the Territory has been suspended since yesterday the first export of oil through the line Kurdish Iraqi supply to Turkish ports under the pretext of the Iraqi government to delay payments to oil companies working in Kurdistan.
The oil ministry in the Iraqi government refuses to recognize contracts signed by the Government of the Territory with international oil companies, calling them illegal to overcome Center in Baghdad.
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...CVoT3e9eXG1vIw
-
Parliament to Question Kurdish Oil Minister Monday
Ashti Hawrami, Minster of Natural Resources of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), was asked by the Kurdish regional Parliament for questioning in next Monday's session regarding accusations that he anonymously bought DNO’s shares worth as much US$ 35 million.
During the investigating session, Hawrami is supposed to clarify the deals he had with the DNO and Oslo Stock Exchange which considered the deal outlawed, according to Kurdish newspaper Hawlati’s interview with Sherwan Haidary, a Kurdish MP.
DNO has being one of more than two dozen oil corporations involving in drilling oil in the Iraqi northern Kurdistan Region.
http://www.hrtribune.net/View.aspx?id=155
-
Parliament calls for drastically to provide clarifications on the issue of company DNO
Hawlati Said a member of the Legal Committee in the Parliament of Kurdistan Shirwan Haidari for calling the Minister of Natural Resources in the region by Parliament to a meeting next Monday in order to provide clarification on the issue of Norwegian company DNO.
And Shirwan al-Haidari said that "next Monday Kurdistan Parliament held its fifth session, the third session, to call a special meeting, Dr. drastically Minister of Natural Resources."
The member of parliament of Kurdistan that Hawrami will be provided during the meeting a set of clarifications to the Parliament on the issue of a Norwegian oil company and the recent Oslo Stock Exchange.
He explained that the call was not to achieve with the Minister of Natural Resources.
The Oslo Stock Exchange published in last September that the Norwegian oil company DNO has secretly sold a number of stocks worth $ 35 million to drastically Minister of Natural Resources in 2008, the NYSE indicated that conceal the name of the stock did not agree and the law of Oslo Stock Exchange. The provincial government has announced its part, the purpose of this dealing is to assist the company in question was to prolong their work in Kurdistan.
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...BI4HeLZSdrKH6g
-
Questioning drastically in Kurdistan's parliament next Monday
Scheduled to attend the Minister of Natural Resources Kurdistan Regional Government drastically the next session of parliament on charges of buying shares worth $ 35 million in private company (DNO) Norwegian oil.
A member of the Legal Committee of the Parliament of the province Shirwan Haidari Parliament will host in its next Monday Hawrami, where will be presented at the meeting for clarification on the issue of company (DNO) in Norwegian oil and the Oslo Stock Exchange for Members of Parliament.
The Oslo Stock Exchange has revealed, on the eighteenth of September on the sale of company (DNO) secretly contributed $ 35 million in 2008 to Hawrami, promised that the stock market the company to hide the names of owners of shares "breach" of the Norwegian stock exchange regulations.
http://www.radiodijla.com/cgi-bin/ne...?id=2009-10-17
-
Kirkuk residents demonstrate against election postponement
Hundreds of Kirkuk residents from all constituents organized a demonstration in front of headquarters of the Relations Office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan on Wednesday, October 28, 2009.
The demonstrators demanded to carry out the election in Kirkuk and not to postpone it and carried slogans indicating their demands.
Representatives of Kirkuk constituents in their speeches commended the role of President Jalal Talabani in consolidating the fraternal spirit and coexistence among Kirkuk citizens.
At the end, the demonstrators demanded the Iraqi Presidency, the Federal Government and the Iraqi Parliament to respond their demands.
http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...14160&Itemid=1